Election day tomorrow
It’s election day tomorrow and Ian says it’s too close to call.
I feel I must vote. Despite the combination of low turnouts and living in a constituency with a Labour majority so large that any other vote may only be useful in helping some other poor candidate get enough votes to get their deposit back. Despite the lack of credible candidates I can actually believe in. Despite a choice of where to place my vote that is as bewilderingly wide as it is infinitesimally shallow. I must because many don’t have that privilege. But mostly I must because it validates my haranguing of my elected representatives for the rest of their term.
Investment in health and education is laudable, but who’s paying for all those schools and hospitals? They’re all built with money from a PFI mortgage our children and grandchildren will have to repay. And of course Gordon Brown’s made sure they don’t know the size of their debt because PFI doesn’t appear as public borrowing. That makes the country’s finances look better than they really are.
Where is the candidate with the courage of their convictions? Where is the candidate willing to say that to deal with poverty and health and education and housing and asylum is going to cost you, and here’s how much?
And if there was such a candidate, would I vote for them?
Maybe there aren’t those candidates because they know I’m as hypocritical in the ballot box as they know I think they are in their council office.
But maybe that can change. I live in hope.
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
We were discussing at work the fact that anyone could stand - web cheap and could build some smallish momentum , mass e-mail, total costs fairly low so…….when are you standing? I’ll do the web bit (not that you couldn’t do it yourself but I could hold the camera while you do some youtube style Cameron blogging).
There is a sizeable vote out there who want to know the truth. I still doubt whether they would vote for it though. Or understand it.