General Election 2010: Up close up and personal with the voters – it's the very foundation of our democracy

THE 2010 general election is over. As a candidate, I am six pounds lighter. Canvassing is the best diet I have ever tried.

Unfortunately, one invariably ends up eating junk food. In the past four weeks, I've had numerous conversations across the political divide on how to achieve a happy balance between losing weight pounding the pavements and gaining it eating custard doughnuts.

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I've done my fair share of television and radio debates, but the stuff of real politics is meeting the voters on the doorstep or at town hall meetings. If you think Jeremy Paxman is a tough questioner, you should try meeting the electorate (and their dogs).

After saturating my constituency with forests of leaflets and flyers, I seem to be on first-name terms with 68,000 strangers. So when I knock on a door, I rarely get in the first word. It's usually a Paxmanesque: "George, I've got a question for you." These questions have ranged from my position on the partition of Kashmir to encouraging cycling.

I notice that Lib Dem and Tory candidates had a handy briefing book with answers to hard questions. But no briefing equips you to answer the question: "When will the council fix my street-light/pavement/window?"

This was also supposed to be the election where the social media – blogs, Facebook and Twitter – put debate back into the hands of ordinary voters. It proved otherwise, with steam-age television dominating the show. Yet like most other candidates, I burned midnight oil to update my Facebook page and reply to total strangers offering to be my virtual friend.

I found one innovative area on the internet: I received about 500 individual messages from constituents asking policy questions originated by NGOs and charities, covering everything from a Robin Hood tax on the banks to the Digital Economy Bill. This created a genuine underground policy debate outside the narrower focus of the mainstream media.

Though the campaign was defined by the presidential-style television debates, this election brought a welcome resurgence of the tradition town hall hustings. By all accounts, these were well attended. On one night, I spoke at two meetings with the Asian community. Both large curry meals were excellent.

Canvassing last summer during the height of the MPs' expenses scandal, I found voters scunnered with politicians as a species. How could a lowly candidate get round this understandable prejudice? I hit on the expedient of giving every voter my phone number and saying there was no political bureaucracy between me and them.

Fellow candidates of all parties promised me a string of calls from nutters, stalkers and political saboteurs. However, the result was a pleasant surprise for me and the voters, including one lady who phoned up very late expecting to talk to an answering machine and got me in a restaurant. We discussed the NHS while I chomped away.

By yesterday, most candidates, I expect, were on an adrenalin high which makes up for the lack of sleep, sore feet and inability to tell which day of the week it is.

Somewhere in the early hours this morning, I will have an exact numerical tabulation of how many individuals in my constituency think I am of Westminster timber and how many think I'm political rubbish. We all know there are people out there who don't rate us highly but by noon today, most would-be MPs will be able to put an exact number on it.

Why do we bother? Because democracy is not reducible to politicians in television studios. The heart of democracy is representatives engaging with the voters face to face. Jeremy Paxman, eat your heart out.

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