These days, trust in politics and politicians is at an all time low.

The voters want people in the House of Commons who, bluntly, tell the truth.

On Tuesday 27 April, I had a long discussion with the Lib Dem candidate, Afzal Anwar, at the newly opened Marsden Heights Community College. This wasn’t a private conversation. It was recorded by the BBC File on Four people for possible inclusion in a programme to be broadcast after the election. Others were present.

Anwar stoutly defended the right of British Pakistanis to send their boys back to Pakistan to be educated.

When I subsequently drew attention to his views – and the fact that his own boys had been taken out of school in Pendle ages ago – Anwar’s agent, Tony Greaves, went volcanic, describing this as a despicable attack. He claimed the boys had gone to Pakistan last year with their mother on an extended visit following a tragic family bereavement.

Not so.

The boys were taken out of school in Pendle long before the tragic family bereavement which is now being used as a cover.

He does not want it be become public knowledge that a man who is standing for election to the UK Parliament prefers to have his boys educated at an elite private school in Pakistan. Just as he was.

I think this kind of dissembling is disgraceful.

Either Afzal Anwar is concocting a story or I am.  We both can't be right.

If I am wrong I shall do three things immediately.

I shall pay £1,000 into a charity nominated by Afzal Anwar.

I shall issue a public apology to Anwar and to the Liberal Democrats.

And I shall also end my campaign for re-election to the Westminster Parliament.