I was glad I read what Gert wrote yesterday beefore going to vote last night, because it’s all too easy to use your local election vote as a knee-jerk reaction against national politics, which as she says, is a travesty of democracy and immature.
But at least when I was being an immature travesty, I did at least know how I wanted to vote. Living as we do in a true blue Tory stronghold, on both a national and a local level, most votes are pretty much wasted. Fortunately we don’t have a Green candidate, who might oblige me to throw my vote to the wind, but a Labour or a UKIP vote would also be wasted, as neither party is likely to see the inside of the council chambers this decade. Obviously a vote for UKIP is more than just wasted, but that’s beside the point.
Having said that, at least UKIP bothered to inform us of their policies. In my small-mindedness, I didn’t read their leaflet, but if I had known that it might be the only one we got, maybe I would have taken some sort of interest. We were also leafleted by the Conservatives, for whom I am almost equally reluctant to vote.
I am irked no end that the only information we had on which to base our decision was provided by the Right. I do really want to know if there is a viable alternative in our area. I want to make an informed choice, after finding out the local parties’ attitudes to green issues, families, schools, and so on – the things that matter to me; but extensive googling didn’t help either; the Lib Dems did at least have a local website, but there was no manifesto to be found.
If the prospective councillors and their supporters are as apathetic as this, why should I vote for them?
At the polling station, a nice lady dressed in yellow told me that she wasn’t allowed to explain her policies to me outside the polling station. I suppose we could have gone and sat on a bench across the road, but it all just seemed a bit stupid by that point. There was also an old crone wearing a UKIP rosette, and I did pity her having apparently walked the streets of our town delivering leaflets. She didn’t really look up to the job.
So in the end, I had to vote tactically, because the only information I had was that I didn’t want a Conservative-dominated local council. I need someone to speak up against the 4x4s.
Hmm. How anyone could vote Labour, I do not know. Look at today’s farce – when we have hospitals laying off staff because they are short of funds (mostly through poor management, I suspect), the government is wasting money on a minister who has no actual work to do, but still has two grace-and-favour apartments and a car (the same apartments he used as venues for his extra-marital affair with a public servant during the working day – when both were being paid out of your taxes to do their public duty). The total bill for all his priviledges is around a quarter of a million per year – quite enough to fund a large chunk of your unborn child’s education. This is the same minister who has previously punched a member of the press- whilst a tempting thing to do, any board member of a FTSE 100 company (I use that example as it must have similar levels of responsibility to DPM) who did such a thing would be fired before he’d finished the follow through.
The sooner these crooks are out of office, the better.
And whilst I respect Gert’s opinions for what they are, I wouldn’t go to her for an unbiased view. The issues I’ve raised above are domestic issues with a local impact – particularly the efficacy of the DPM’s office, which has, until today, been responsible for local government – those local pavements, local street sweepers and local services to which she refers.