Declan broadcast live from Nell's Cafe, Gravesend

For the next few weeks, Declan will be out on the road, finding out what really matters to ordinary voters across the UK.

Yesterday, he looked at the issue of Europe, with the voters of Gravesend in Kent.

Which put him in the mood for an English Breakfast:

There's just no escape from these health crazes.

Nell's cafe is a traditional truckers' stop. All through the morning, we were served up traditional fare - bacon sandwiches and steaming mugs of tea.

Plates piled high with sausages, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans and much more were put in front of me before each broadcast, so it wouldn't look like we were going hungry.

There were signs exhorting us to have more tea, more coffee or extra helpings of fried food.

And then we saw it.

Up on the wall, a menu for its all new trucker's "Atkins" breakfast.

Pride of place, the crucial component: a very large lump of steak.

The Road to Europe

We were in Nell's because it put us on the road to Europe - quite literally. The cafe is on the edge of the A2, and is a regular haunt for drivers on their way to Dover for the cross-channel ferry to Calais.

In the past, Europe has been an explosive issue in British politics. The Conservatives tore themselves apart in the 1990s over our role in the European Union.

William Hague branded the 2001 election as a chance to "save the pound".

Labour has also had its divisions - in the 1970s then Prime Minister Harold Wilson allowed his cabinet to campaign on both sides of the EEC referendum.

And the party was hostile to the European Community for part of the 1980s.

But this time around, the pollsters say it will be different.

People who care about Europe as a political issue will continue to do so passionately, whatever side of the argument they are on.

Summing it up rather crudely, supporters of the European Union say it's good for jobs, good for business and good for the environment.

They say European trade sustains thousands of jobs and billions of pounds worth of trade.

And they point to common standards across the continent for things like environmental protection.

Critics of the EU say it costs us too much money and strangles our business with red tape.

What do the voters think?

The UK Independence Party says Europe's policies have crippled Britain's farming and fishing industries.

And it says British taxpayers could get a multi-billion pound windfall if we pulled out of the EU entirely.

But while those arguments will be made during the campaign, the pollsters don't think they'll decide the election.

However passionate the debate, they expect the choice on voting day will come down to bread and butter issues like schools, hospitals, crime -

and trust. By the way, don't forget to check in with our Vote 2005 website - it has the full details of the parties' European policies.