Name: Jim Makin – UK Independence Party (UKIP)

What do you love about East Hampshire?

Lovely Petersfield, South Downs, good cycle routes all around, rural aspect, A272, good railway inherited from South West Trains – but the prognosis may not be too good.

What do you think the biggest issue facing residents is?

That our politicians seem to be working for someone else.

In a sentence, why do you deserve the job?

I am open, honest, keep my promises, and UKIP has the best policies, which other parties like to ‘borrow’ after they realise that we are right.

What book or books should everyone read?

On politics and economics: Adults in the Room; And the Weak Suffer What They Must?; Talking to my Daughter – a brief history of Capitalism; The Global Minotaur; The Incredible Bread Machine; The Strange Death of Europe; The Grand Chessboard; Ruling the Void – The Hollowing of Western Democracy; and 9/11 Unmasked.

On health: Healing is Voltage.

On history: 1421– The Year China discovered America; and 1434 – The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.

Where did you last go on holiday?

I cycle-camped from Petersfield to Glastonbury and back, taking in the Glastonbury Symposium at the end of July.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I had no idea but after I left my first dead-end job, I was offered a job as a new-fangled trainee computer programmer and never looked back.

When was the last time you used public transport?

To visit London for an election briefing.

If someone wanted to eat out in East Hampshire, where would you recommend?

I have a terrible confession to make – I tend to eat out in West Sussex! I’m told the Greyfriar in Chawton is good, and the Half Moon at Sheet and the Jolly Drover at Hill Brow are popular.

And the incomparable, cosy old-time traditional of the Harrow Inn at Steep – they don’t make inns like this any more.

What do you hope to get for Christmas? Brexit on WTO terms!

What do you do to switch off from politics?

I get on my bike and enjoy our countryside.