It’s great to see so many people – gay and straight, male and female – enjoy themselves over the Pride weekend. I’ve never actually visited Pride before and as a straight man I felt completely welcome.

I know that all the main Parties here in Salford agree that we need to make sure that our City is a friendly, open and tolerant place to live where everyone regardless of their background can reach their full potential. I think that we are well on the way to that.

I am told that the questions will be a mix of pre-submitted questions and contributions from the floor. You can submit your questions online here - hope to see you there!

Millions of people died or were displaced at the hands of the Nazis and do not deserve to be belittled by petty party politics as expressed by Joe O’Neill. Shame on you Joe, and whoever drew the pathetic cartoon you chose to exhibit.

You can now submit questions for the Big Ask online – please do and I look forward to fielding them on the 21st!

Last week, in response to the latest round of nonsense in the London-based press, our excellent local journalists at the Advertiser and the MEN launched a “come to Salford” campaign on Twitter. I’ve tried to do my bit to support the campaign and we can all chip in with positive reasons to relocate to our City and to our region.

I do hope that BBC employees do choose to relocate, because our area is a great place to live, but we must also be careful not to demonise those who don’t. I wouldn’t criticise anyone for staying put for family reasons, and criticising those who choose to stay brings us down to level of debate that we are trying to avoid.

John served on the Council from 2004 until 2007; he was a real gentleman who cared deeply about the community he lived in and he will be very badly missed.

My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Obviously some difficult choices have been made with the BSF programme nationally, as a result of the catastrophic financial legacy of the previous Labour Government, but this decision – along with the potential review of Labour’s maternity unit closure – shows that we are all in this together and that the coalition government is giving Salford a fair hearing.

Most local people would agree with this. The Labour Party have run Salford City Council for the last 36 years and have consistently neglected our broken highways. Now even Labour’s own leaflets are damning about their appalling failure to maintain our roads.

Conservative Councillors across the City have consistently argued for more investment in our broken roads and pavements, whilst Labour have let the roads crumble for decades. There’s only one way to improve our highways here in Salford, and that’s to vote for change on May 6 and vote Conservative.

The roads across Irlam and Cadishead are in a shocking state, but I’m particularly concerned about the condition of Station Road which in places appears to be crumbling down the embankment. The contractors building the new school must be held accountable for that damage and should ensure that the road remains fit-for-purpose during construction and returned to tip-top condition afterwards.

Salford Royal Hospital does a fantastic job for the City. A Conservative Government would protect health spending, and under Conservative plans for a “patient premium”, we would see more investment in our local NHS – not the huge cuts taking place under this Labour Government.

Labour already plan to take away our maternity unit. I will not give up the fight to keep it open. The NHS is my number one priority, and our local NHS desperately needs a change of Government to protect local health services from Labour cuts.