AT our Penarth hustings the only mention of TTIP was from the Ukip candidate.

I would like to ask why, If Nigel Farage is so keen on UK independence, does he not attend meetings of the European Parliament to scrutinise details of the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Protocol that could make our government powerless to withstand corporate power.

Also are the other candidates opposed to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement section of TTIP, in particular, which would put corporations above any court system, including the High Court of Parliament?

This treaty could result in the UK having to pay compensation for introducing democratically approved laws to protect public services, particularly the NHS, which could be fragmented and to safeguard the public against hazardous goods.

All candidates were in agreement that we should cut pollution but there are more cars on the road than ever now that Cardiff has been forced to cut bus services. So why not save our buses by giving everyone a bus pass and meeting the cost from a congestion charge to make our roads safer and our air cleaner?

But this is a matter for the Welsh Assembly; and some questions showed a lack of clarity about what is devolved and what isn't, which highlights the urgent constitutional issue that wasn't mentioned, namely, Cameron's outrageous proposal to exclude Scottish MPs from voting on 'English issues' when there are no such issues that will not also affect Scotland and Wales.

Every modern government has governed on behalf of the City of London, but, in return for being bailed out in 2008, the City has made clear there is no longer any willingness to share its profits with the former industrial areas of the UK by paying their taxes for public services.

Nicola Sturgeon joined the SNP after Mrs Thatcher squandered North Sea oil revenues on a simplistic monetarist experiment that destroyed our manufacturing bases in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the North of England.

The Falklands War should have been the last twitch of Empire but since then, in clinging to America's coat tails, the Iraq War has ultimately led to the rise of IS, with the consequence that we increasingly mirror the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in its failure to collect taxes, increasing privatisation, even of border controls, and disintegration of public services.

Partial devolution of power to Scotland and Wales cannot halt this decline at the centre of power in Westminster, where the current House of Commons is no longer fit for the purpose of holding the government to account, without an English Assembly to replace the House of Lords, which, after all, began life as an English Assembly.

A Confidence and Supply arrangement in 2010, might have achieved the constitutional reform which Britain so desperately needs but the Coalition put paid to that, and we cannot endure another five years of economic mismanagement, which could mean leaving the EU and permanently being a low wage, low productivity economy, while we wait for a Constitutional Convention.

Aspiration depends on social justice, but, if we are to achieve a more equal society, we need to co-operate with the SNP and the Green Party on a new written constitution, and a new bill of rights to ensure the right to a living wage, an affordable home, free health care, and free, good quality education, both academic and technical for a skilled workforce both to compete in a global economy, and to safeguard the liberal internationalist values Britain fought so hard for 70 years ago.

Margaret Phelps

Penarth