Well the local Conservatives finally got around to saying hello which makes the current visitations at 2 to 1 in Labours favour, not that I favour Labour generally of course. I even got to meet my local MP for the first time even if her list had me wrongly named, or possibly she just assumed I had the same name as my partner. I also recognised her and her pictures in the press don't really do her justice, nice lady, well she would be, they wanted my vote after all.
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| Focussing on the local. |
One of the things I have noticed between the two different parties is where their emphasis lies in how they want to gain votes. Labour are deliberately focussing on the Tories performance nationally and the supposed cuts that will make everyones life a misery, whist studiously avoiding any mention of why those cuts might be necessary or indeed how they'd solve the deficit problem other than being nicer than the Tories about it.
The Tories on the other hand want me to focus on what they are doing locally as opposed to nationally, in other words they'd rather I'd ignore what Cameron and his EUphilic ilk are up too with the Lib Dems and not focus so much on government cuts, hence the list of what my local candidates have done for my area.
Still no doubt a lot of people will be voting on national issues in the hope of affecting the governments thinking, certainly that's what the Tories were up too before the general election and something they hope we wont do now.
I still haven't decided who I will vote for yet, though it won't be Labour, I'm not even sure if any independents are standing in my ward, I'll have to check, though they haven't asked for my vote yet.
As for the referendum, well I'm still undecided.
5 annotations:
Quiet_Man - your candidates are David Albiston (Labour), Matt Bright (Conservative), Matthew Butt (Labour), Pat Gulvin (Conservative), Daniel David Logan (English Democrats) and Mohammad Saeed Qureshi (Liberal Democrat).
When I was campaigning for the Conservatives in 2007, our message was largely local back then as well. By and large we prefer to keep local elections to local issues and national elections to national issues, although there will always be times where the two overlap.
Of course all parties will include a mixture of the two when campaigning, whether you think that that is right or wrong, but most voters, regardless of what kind of election it is, will choose their vote mostly based on the national situation.
"As for the referendum, well I'm still undecided."
In that case, logic says vote "Yes". If AV wins and you change your mind and only want to vote for one candidate in future GE's, you are free to do so under AV. If they retain FPTP, then you will not have the option of casting conscience, comedy and compromise votes in future GEs.
@ Mark,
I don't like coalitions and it's only the thought of the Lib Dems being the minority party in power for the next few decades that has me wavering on voting no.
The Lib Dems might get slightly more seats under AV than under FPTP, that much is true (and I am hardly their biggest fan), but AV gives us the opportunity to give the two major parties a good kicking*, which I think far outweighs the modest advantage to the Lib Dems.
* To wit, the ten per cent of voters who will vote "UKIP 1, Tory 2".
And fair's fair, it strikes me as wrong for the Lib Dems to get over twenty per cent of the popular vote and less than ten per cent of MPs.
Id vote split Gulvin and David Logan. English Dem's are anti-EU whilst the Tories have just tossed another couple of billion to Portugal after giving a small fortune to Ireland.
Perhaps Cameron and his federalist pussy cats will listen
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