The next Lib Dem or Labour person I catch putting a campaign leaflet through my letterbox is going to be limping away with their remaining local election material protruding from their backside.
I have a ‘No junk mail please’ sticker on my letterbox (which actually works a treat when it comes to takeaway food and double glazing flyers), but for some reason the political parties don’t think it applies to them. Over the last month, barely a day has gone by when I haven’t had something in the post or delivered by hand from Labour or the Lib Dems, telling me why I should vote for them, how much they’re doing for East Dulwich etc. (amazing how interested they are in my views in the weeks leading up to an election). I’ve never known an election like it.
It’s not just campaign printed material either; I been phoned three times, and had a Labour councillor turn up at the door. I rather enjoyed that one — I almost felt sorry for him by the time I’d finished with him.
For a split second I considered giving him my standard response to anyone from Nu Labour — ‘Fuck off’ — but then I thought a) it would be fun to let him know exactly why I will never vote Labour again, and b) the more time he spends talking to me, the less time he has for trying to convert genuine floating voters.
It started with him asking me if I knew who I’d be voting for on 4th May, and I replied Green. ‘Well we’re not sure if they’ll be fielding any candidates yet,’ he responded. This was a bare-faced lie; at the last local election, the Green Party came second after Labour in this ward (the top three candidates are elected, and the Green candidates came 4th and 5th), so of course they would be fielding candidates.
Next, the councillor asked me if I would consider voting Labour, at which point I explained that I used to vote Labour, but will never do so again. I then spent several minutes going through some of the reasons for this: the destruction of our basic civil rights under the guise of prevention of terrorism, the National Identity database, the government’s inaction on climate change, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, PPP/PFI schemes, the war in Iraq, our dodgy MP Tessa Jowell and her dodgy husband, and of course Tony Blair.
‘But these are local elections,’ replied the Labour councillor rather forlornly.
My resonse was that a) these issues are far more important than any local ones, b) he was standing under the banner of the Labour Party - if he didn’t want to be associated with their policies, he should stand as an independent, and c) if Labour do well in the local elections, Tony Blair will take it as a vindication of his policies and become smugger than ever.
The councillor looked rather deflated by the time he left me.
His ‘but it’s a local election’ line was rather undermined by the latest Labour election leaflet to come through the door. In it, they make a big deal about the Lib Dems’ national policy of wanting to give prisoners the right to vote. Not just prisoners mind, but ‘prisoners like Ian Huntley’. Jesus fucking wept, was the leaflet written by sub editor at the Sun? Or is it just some sort of Brasseye parody I’m not aware of?
(Well, as a matter of fact, I do think prisoners should have the right to vote in elections. What are Labour afraid of? That the ‘Let All Criminals Out of Prison’ party will win a landslide victory? The vast majority of people in prison are not child killers, and are serving relatively short sentences. Surely we should be doing everything we can to make prisoners realise that they do have a role to play in the wider community. People who feel disenfranchised and alienated by society, who feel that nobody cares or listens to them, are bound to find it easier to commit crimes against that society. Give them the vote, give them some responsibility, make them feel like, to coin a Nu Labour favourite, stakeholders. It can’t do any harm, and who knows, it might do a tiny bit of good.)
Anyway…
