Local Elections

Today there are Local council elections taking place. Here, Labour has a stronghold on power. At one point it really was the case that if Labour had put a Monkey up as a candidate, it would have won. Having any single party in that position is never good for democracy no matter what the colour of political leanings are. As simply no one party has all the answers, and any party that is in power and virtually guaranteed to be re-elected becomes complacent, detached and arrogant.

I have placed my vote for the Liberal Democrats, as the least worst option. If there had been a Green Party candidate that is where my vote would have gone. But the Green party only put up candidates in Middle Class areas (shame on them), as this is a working class area, that limits our choice.

It has been an interesting campaign to observe as the Labour party tried to smear the Lib Dems while claiming that they had been smeared. As recently a senior advisor to Gordon Brown, the Labour Prime Minister, had resigned as he was planning to smear everyone, I really did think that the election was for a nursery school and not the local authority.

This election comes a week after one Newspaper started detailing the expenses claims of many MPs. While there are many of the details that are shocking and quite simply fraudulent, we now have the main parties all trying to show that they are wearing their hair shirts. It is not that MPs should be deigned legitimate expenses, but that the system was being abused. Some MPs were making serious profits from the system and by yesterday over one hundred and thirty thousand pounds had been repaid, or pledged to be repaid.

While I am personally dissatisfied by the actions of our MPs and the current political leadership, the current changes that are being proposed will mean that only rich or well off people could ever afford to serve in parliament. Therefore perpetuating the status quo that has got us into the mess we are already in.

In this local election I suspect that my vote has been a “wasted” one, as no matter how bad the local council is, and it is bad, Labour will always get support just like a pavlovian dog. Nationally, Labour has wrecked the economy, led us into an illegal war and created greater social divisions than the Conservatives ever did. The Conservatives would have done no better, especially on the economy and had they been in power, the poor and disadvantaged would have suffered even more with the start of the banking collapse. The only party that has consistently spoken and acted responsibly, especially in relation to the recession, has been the Liberal Democrats. Not that I fully trust them either, but I judge my politicians by their policies and their deeds.