I'VE always enjoyed election campaigns, even as a child.

I remember as a nine-year old in the 1970 election cycling around the country lanes where I grew up, pinning bright orange Liberal posters to the trees. Yes, Liberal!

Well this was a part of the countryside where you could have put a blue rosette on a turkey and it would have still won.

Labour didn't stand a chance, the Liberals were in second place and I had a youthful attraction to the colour orange! Mum, a teacher, was always Labour, dad, a vicar, was Liberal.

It must have caused quite a stir with the local Tory squirearchy to see the vicarage festooned with competing Labour and Liberal posters — the only non-blue ones in the village, naturally.

The economy will rightly dominate this election. No surprise, given the world has just gone through the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Who has made the right decisions during the downturn? Whom do people trust more to secure and build on the recovery? No prizes for guessing how I would answer those questions.

Suffice to say, when asked by a constituent in The Thatch pub in Exwick last weekend, "Ben, give me one good reason to vote Labour," I replied: "How about George Osborne?" It worked.

The two other issues raised most often on the doorstep are immigration and potholes.

A man collared me in Whipton saying: "Ben, we need an Australian-style, points-based system."

When I told him we already had one, it was introduced last year, had cut immigration by 30 per cent in 12 months and that asylum claims were at record lows, he looked surprised. Probably because you don't read that kind of thing in the Sun or the Daily Mail.

Potholes are a useful reminder that all politics are local. If local councils can't maintain the roads and pavements, what are they for? Potholes are a particular hazard if, like me, you ride a bike. I've come off mine in Exeter when, out of the darkness, there loomed a gaping hole that wasn't there before and I couldn't stop in time.

I was very pleased when Alistair Darling announced an extra £110m for pothole repairs in the budget. Better road maintenance was another strong argument in Exeter's unitary bid. Why on earth should councillors from Barnstaple or Budleigh decide which road in our city is resurfaced or how much of our money should be spent in Exeter at all?

Now that both Houses of Parliament have supported Exeter's unitary case and it is law, it seems an even more pointless waste of council tax payers' money for Devon County Council to continue to try to overturn the decision in the courts.

I'm not a lawyer, but isn't Parliament the highest court in the land?

Any judge would surely be reluctant to challenge a law that had been debated and voted on in both Houses several times. And if he or she did, it would leave in limbo Exeter's sitting councillors, whose terms have been extended for one year until all-out elections in Exeter next year.

The sensible thing now would be for the county council to settle its differences with the city and work together in the best interests of all the people of Exeter and Devon.

David Cameron's threat to sell Exeter down the river and hand powers back from the city to the county council if he wins power provoked understandable fury from city Conservatives. It also put his local parliamentary candidate in a dreadful position — caught between her leader and her local party — and still not able to state clearly where she stands. But Cameron's threat, like most of his policies, is an empty one. It would require primary legislation to reverse the decision.

It is inconceivable that an incoming Tory Government would devote valuable parliamentary time in its first session to a Bill robbing just two cities, Exeter and Norwich, of their new status.

And anyway, Parliament would be clogged up dealing with one of Cameron's more pressing priorities: bringing back hunting with dogs in his first year. Westcountry hunts have even been ordered into Exeter to help the Tory election campaign, presumably to replace those local activists who won't exactly be straining themselves after Cameron's unhelpful unitary intervention.

Congratulations to all at St Leonard's Primary School, who have won their campaign to save their playing field.

I was particularly impressed by the initiative of two young pupils, Freya Allery and Maya Kellie-Smith, who I met while out and about the other weekend. They raised money and sponsorship to produce leaflets and posters and then distributed them to homes and businesses in the area. What great public spiritedness! Who says young people are apathetic?