A SIXTH-former unearthed his inner David Dimbleby as he hosted a hustings event.

Ardingly College invited a range of local candidates to the event on Monday, April 20 and Alex Demetriadi from Balcombe chaired the discussion.

Horsham candidates Morwen Millson (Liberal Democrat), Martyn Davis (Labour) and Jeremy Quin (Conservative) were joined by Miranda Diboll representing the Greens in Mid Sussex for a very lively series of debates and some spiky exchanges.

Alex, who hopes to study politics and East European studies at UCL, believes the evening inspired his fellow students and said: “It was both an extremely enjoyable and a thoughtful debate and it was very useful to hear the candidates’ views on the issues surrounding what will, no doubt, be a very close election.

“The questions raised by the students also showed the extent to which the election has very much has taken a hold of us here at Ardingly and I’m sure a lot of us will be at the polls on May 7 to have our say.”

Responding to what Morwen Millson described as “some very good, intelligent and wide-ranging questions”, the panel discussed a range of topics including minimum wage, voting systems, the save to buy and right to buy schemes, taxation and the economy in general. She added Amazon should be paying taxes in the UK on all the audience’s purchases.

Jeremy Quin encouraged first time voters to keep the economy in Conservative hands, saying debt and borrowing would be controlled.

He added: “You would not want to be paying back your parents’ credit card bills in 30 years’ time.”

Miranda Diboll responded to questions about how the Greens could raise corporation tax without creating unemployment and spoke passionately in favour of funding renewable energy and against fracking. On education, Martyn Davis said he now believed Labour’s aim of getting 50% of the population into universities was wrong. He spoke about bringing back polytechnic-style vocational courses and increasing training opportunities and apprenticeships, with which the panel agreed.

The liveliest moments were reserved for exchanges on £9,000 tuition fees with Morwen Millson having to defend her party’s eventual support for the Tories and admitted: “There are a few things in government I wish we hadn’t had to do.”