Post election re-action; further thoughts

As a first-time Campaigner, who failed to get elected under the Lib-Dem banner in Thursday's local elections, I must now go on record as saying that the Coalition for me is not working.

The Lib Dems have been used as a shield to allow the Tories to make unpopular choices and cuts that have under-mined the public sector in particular and allowed unscrupulous private sector employers to revert to the 'big-stick' method of control seen so often under the dreadful Thatcher years. The party, and Nick Clegg in particular, has also taken all the flak for a tuition fee policy that was always part of the Tories agenda but never the Lib Dems.

Why teflon Cameron never gets any comeback is beyond me- after all the Coalition is Conservative LED and the Lib Dems are, at best, junior-partners only.In order to stop the haemorrhaging of Lib Dem Councils, Councillors and grass-root activists and supporters, I urge Clegg to pull out of the coalition now, stand up to the Tories and say enough is enough by recapturing our unique identity. Lib Dems would NEVER have raised tuition fees in Government alone; Lib Dems would NEVER have made such savage and severe cuts in Government alone. 

The party has been hood-winked by the Tories due to its own naivety and suffered dramatically as a consequence.

Post election reaction

Thank you to the 630 of you that voted for me in Herontye district election (I have left the count before the Town results have been declared) and congratulations to the two Messrs Belsey and Sweatman for their success.  A special thanks to my running mate, Chris Jerrey, who has helped me cope with the occasional rude person  who assumed that people wanting to do their best for the town deserve less respect than the stuff one tries to avoid standing in when walking in the country!

Besides this Chris,(who has so superbly served Herontye for 4 years at Mid Sussex District Council and who will be sorely missed), has been a great mentor and despite the very disappointing result, has become a person whose friendship I value tremendously.

As for the result then it is clear to me that I will no longer be able to sustain any support for the coalition agreement.  The Lib Dems have been used, at national level, as whipping boys by the tories and I now firmly believe that we should have entered a coalition with the Labour party - who can be trusted - rather than got into bed with a party that has never been known to listen to anyone other than their own grass root support......

Nice to see Mr Soames at today's count; the landed gentry keeping in touch with 'his' public wearing a 1980's double breasted suit.....the retro look is after all back in fashion!

Final Day of Campaigning!

Campaigning in 2011 is very different to that in 2001; blogs, Twitter and Facebook have all changed the way that candidates interact with the electorate and, coupled with traditional means of engagement, this surely promotes the democratic ideal.

It is with this in mind that we can further enhance democracy within the United kingdom by taking the next step towards Proportional Representation and voting YES to the Alternative Vote tomorrow at the ballot box.  For Labour voters in seats where the contest is normally between ourselves and the Tories, then YES tomorrow is very likely to improve their return and number of MPs.  This is due to the fact that it is my belief that the majority of Lib Dems have values which are more left of centre than right…..thankfully!

Whilst driving into the office today I was staggered by the choice of headline news that BBC Radio Surrey decided to run with.  Declaring that a prominent statistician had pronounced that YES would make little difference in the South-East, they actually failed to mention that the referendum is a national one and not being voted on constituency lines.  A YES vote tomorrow in Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester and London will carry the same weight in a two-horse contest.  It is future elections where the sensible proposal to return MPS with at least 50.1% of constituency support, will mean that the reliance on tactical voting is reduced and people can start to base their vote on their political leanings.

If you are still in doubt about tomorrow’s vote, I urge you to try the various calculators on the web including the one on Sky News’s site which can be found at http://news.sky.com/skynews/Interactive-Graphics/avcalculator.

For the Country’s electorate I say vote YES for AV on the 5th May; for the residents of Herontye I say vote YES for Jerrey, Barnett and Joannou-Coetzee!

Best quote of recent days.....

Thanks to Guardian reader Blair Mcpherson who stated "who says men can't multitask?  Cameron manages to be both smug and condescending at the same time"