democracy

well it’s the big day. cast your vote, make a difference.
you have to feel a little sorry for new labour – they have done some wonderful things for the poor and disadvantaged of the country, but no one wants to hear about that they want to go on about iraq and immigration.
yes both subjects are important and need to be discussed, but they are not the sum total of what this election is about.

over in tony blair’s constituency of sedgefield the following candidates are standing

berony abraham, independent; john barker, independent; cherri blairout-gilham, pensioner's party; julian brennan, independent; william brown, ukip; robert browne, lib dem; jonathan cockburn, blair must go; mark farrell, national front; helen john, independent; al lockwood, conservative; fiona luckhurst-matthews, veritas; terry pattinson, senior citizens party; boney maroney staniforth, monster raving loony party.

and of course there is reg keys, who is standing as an independent. reg wasn’t interested in politics until his son tom was killed in iraq, a war which keys insists was illegal and immoral and therefore makes him the ideal candidate to stand against blair in his sedgefield constituency.
keys says "i'm not exactly what you'd expect of a politician, but i do know that i can embarrass tony blair." he goes on to say “we can use our vote to get rid of those people who betrayed my son and other men like him. that's what i want the people of sedgefield to do” (guardian)
i have to admit i have had mixed feelings about the war in iraq, most of them come not from the fact that an “illegal” war brought down an evil dictator but more from the fact that
1] clearly the operation was done in such a botched fashion we are still no closer to being able to exit.
2] that now that a “pre-emptive” argument has been made there seems to be no political will to go forward with that.
3] the world appears to be a much less safe place than it was before the invasion of iraq.

but the use of the war as a political rallying cry does cry out opportunism (and to my mind an element of cowardice – it is so much easier to be strong on one thing than it is to present a unified package to people). while keys has more right to do this than, say, george galloway, any votes cast for him are still wasted ones.

however it is good to see democracy in action (all over the whitechapel area you can see stickers telling muslims not to vote – because if they do they are no longer muslims. who would have thought the bnp and fundamentalist muslims would have something in common? (the bnp used to be anti-elections because they believed that elections meant that politicians could not really get on with the governing of the country because they were always interested in getting re-elected. the fundamentalist muslims are against elections because they oppose the idea of man made laws.)

it’s great to see ukip, veritas and national front go at it (what no bnp?) well that is going to confuse their potential vote which of the 3 do you choose? so let’s expect them to not be getting their deposits back.
it warms my heart to see the monster raving loony party in there. but where is respect?
the ones i feel sorry for are the independents – it’s almost like they are part of the billy no mates party, you would thought that they could have made up some silly names for themselves, rather than end up with the name of a newspaper that very few people read.

remember you might think it is a good idea to give tony blair a bloody nose, but you run the risk of letting in the conservatives. And let me tell you no one will thank you for that!