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Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

May 5th, 2010 @ 19:05 | permalink
Filed under: Politics

Thankfully the dullest general election campaign (since the last one) has finally reached the bitter end. All that remains now is for the 50 to 60% of the population who give a damn to vote, for all those votes to be counted and find out who is going to screw us over for the next 6 to 24 months (if it is a coalition) or 4 to 5 years (if one party goes it alone).

For better or worse I'm in what can be considered safe Conservative seat so I expect the same fool who was my MP a month ago to be my MP come Friday morning. The only question I'm yet to answer is which one of them I shall be gifting my vote to. My options are:

• David Amess (Con): The incumbent, known trougher and sucker (thanks to Brass Eye). Jumped ship from Basildon rather than be slung out in '97. Will probably win but won't be getting my vote.

• Tom Flynn (Lab): Stupid enough to have a picture of the one eyed Scottish idiot (© J. Clarkson) who has presided over the trashing of our economy for the last 13 years in his election leaflet. Younger than me and is employed by a public sector trade union rather than doing anything useful. Even if I were for one second to consider voting Labour any of that would be enough to ensure I didn't.

• Peter Welch (Lib Dems): Has supposedly wanted to knock on every door in the constituency but I can't say he has been to mine. Still, the poor dear can't be expected to spend his evenings and weekends chasing after those of us who work. According to the website he studied politics before beginning work with the NAO and has also worked for various United Nations bodies, the Bolivian government, and the EU. So no proper job for him either.

• Garry Cockrill (UKIP): Has the misfortune to look rather like known irritant Peter Tatchell but that aside from that appears to have Libertarian tendencies even if he is standing for a predominantly single issue party (not that I disagree with said issue). Also a former IT nerd. Leaflet was large on graphics and small on words.

• Terry Phillips (English Democrats): Nationalistic (not as of itself a bad thing) and a small businessman (a good thing). The only problem I have is that their main plank (an English Parliament) would add yet another bloody layer of political bureaucracy to proceedings. Given that we already have at least one too many layers, why would adding another help?

• Dr. Marimuthu Velmurugan (Independent): One of my local councillors as I've just discovered. Is anonymity a good or bad thing in a politician? Was originally a member of the Labour party but now describes himself as someone who is conservative minded. Is he therefore fulfilling Churchill's old maxim - or just someone who switches sides when it suits him (and before anyone yells I'm well aware that Churchill did a bit a floor crossing of his own). As he is in favour of the monolith that is the NHS and re-nationalisation then I'm guessing it is the later.

Fuck knows which of that lot I'll actually vote for. Quite frankly 'None of the above' or a spoilt ballot paper are looking more attractive options.

There are two other candidates but as they haven't even managed (either by hand or the offices of the Royal Mail) to get so far as sticking a piece of processed dead tree through my door they have no hope of me voting for them.

• Tony Gladwin (BNP): Another child - both by age and maturity (going by what he is reported to have posted publically on facebook) and doesn't even live in the constituency. A deposit loser if ever I saw one.

• Barry Bolton (Green): Seemingly even more anonymous than the muppet from the BNP - until I found his website and its misleading url: barryboltonmp.com. Someone needs to point out to the greens that he isn't an MP, never has been an MP and that no one has had the right to use that acronym since parliament was dissolved on April 12th. Aside from that it seems he has been a member of the other despised profession (a journalist). Hardly a recommendation.