Local Elections: Loud, Louder, Loudest
My life has obviously been a sheltered one because I've never seen anything like these local elections in NZ, NL or France. There's been so much shouting, it's been hard finding out what the local parties actually stand for. First off, scandals have hit Labour which threaten to overshadow local issues: the Minister of Health was booed by nurses, the Deputy Prime Minister committed adultery with a junior colleague and the Home Secretary didn't consider foreign criminals for deportation when he should have. These issues have actually come in for sober debate too but when they're tied into the local elections, all sense disappears.
Secondly, the local parties in my borough seem almost unable to communicate sensibly. The latest Liberal Democrat material looked like it had been put together by a tabloid. They even ran a mocking cartoon of MP George Galloway as a cat (referring to him pretending to be a cat while in the Big Brother house). I don't have a problem with making fun of George Galloway, but there's a time and a place. The Lib Dems did point to a fuller election programme on their website...which was down the first time I tried it.
I should have stopped being surprised at that point but Labour's leaflet the next day was even worse, stereotyping everyone who wears a hoody as a troublemaker. That must have been nice for parents to see, "hello, your children are evil because of the clothes they wear." It goes without saying that this hoody-wearing delinquent did not vote Labour.
Hopefully some helpful person will be along shortly to tell me if election campaigning here is always so negative in this country.
I finally heard from the Conservatives who were literally shouting this week. There's been a convoy of cars driving around the neighbourhood with someone yelling into a megaphone. I don't know what they were on about as I couldn't identify the language (something from the Indian sub-continent at a guess) let alone understand it.
The weirdness continued at the polling station where, to my great surprise, Tory, Lib Dem and Respect (first I'd seen of them) were handing out leaflets. I'm not used to campaigning on polling day being allowed. The Lib Dem teller said there were more party reps than usual and reckoned it was because Respect had upped the ante. There was also a police officer on hand which I also asked about, but apparently that's standard and had nothing to do with the alleged postal fraud.
Anyway, it's a beautiful day and me and my bits of paper are now going outside.