“If you:
Run a pub, restaurant or hotel;
Work behind the bar, serve tables or collect glasses;
Cook in a catering kitchen, clean hotel bedrooms or plan weddings;
Run a post office, corner shop or newsagents;
Work in an office either employing or being employed, working with staff in the UK and abroad;
Work in retail at any level and deal with whatever the general public throw at you every day;
Work as a salesperson or account manager for a national or regional company;
Are self employed, with all that entails, working outdoors and relying on the weather and seasonal changes to maintain an income;
Drive or travel nationally or internationally in order to make a living;
Recruit and train staff or deal with staff development and retention;
 
Then I have done your job and know your pain; and not as a work experience program for a politician as some suggest they should, but as my main or only means of providing for myself and my family. 
 
I work in the area, I live in the area, my wife has never lived anywhere else and we have children who go to school here. Successive MPs and councillors from all sides have done nothing but hold Haltwhistle back and patronise its residents and you all deserve so much better.
 
I am not a politician. I am as tired as you are of feeling helpless.”