Education Did you know that there is an election looming?

Apart from TV saturation cover which is mainly same old same old promises or rather goals as they now call them because that way they do not have to have any intention or even pretend to reach these goals.
But my thread is about local candidates. So far I have received only one leaflet, that was from the Greens but nothing else. No visits in fact I have no idea who are my local candidates for this election.

Yet we hear constantly of politicians telling us all when on various TV programs how they are out and about talking to people. If memory serves in the 30 years I have lived in my house I have only once had a MP canvass my door.

Am I missing out?

 

I've had endless leaflets come through the letterbox, usually a few different ones every day. They go straight into the recycling.

I've had two come to the house, but I've seen a few more knocking on other doors and skip my house out entirely.

They might just be skipping your house for some reason... do you live in a house like this?

 

That's the one.

 

At least those pesky kids don't bother you when they kick the football over.

 

Well not twice anyway.

 

I seem to get deluged with election bumf on an almost daily basis at the moment - and, as with Tad, most of mine goes in the recycling. I have had a couple of canvassers recently, and also seen some go past and knock on other doors, avoiding mine. They seem to have some sort of 'hit list' though!

 

I think I may have gotten myself on to another kind of hit list with UKIP, after baiting the campaigner into a discussion about foreign nationals, trying to elicit some sort of extreme xenophobic response (I did not sadly) before revealing that I myself was unable to vote on account of being one of said foreign nationals and I was simply wasting their time.

 

I cant wait for the stupid emails to stop coming through.....

 

You most defiantly are missing out, you don't know the joys of having someone talk to you about how there going to make your life better, wasting you time with lies, getting you so angry you want to punch them. j/k

My betting is you haven't had any cold callers because you live in a safe seat so they CBA.

 

Last election, when I rented in a new build estate, I had so many canvassers for all parties come to my door... now I live in ex-council I've only had UKIP come round, needless to say they were very much unable to answer my questions without blaming the EU or immigrantion and swiftly got the door closed on them.

 

ive only had a few fliers in my area and no canvassers, shame really, was looking forward to telling labour to **** off.

 

I'm in a very safe seat area (is this the correct wording?), so apart from the usual leaflet (only 4 so far) no one have bothered to knock and chat.

I live in if it ain't broken, don't fix it. I looked up my candidate's voting history, seems to mostly agree with my views enough so I'll continue to vote for her.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
You can look up your current and candidates. Look at their voting history and decide if you agree with their views. No point voting for someone who doesn't not represent your views at the commons.

 

Lots and lots of pamphlets, a number of letters and a single canvasser so far, getting a bit fed up really. I mean I understand why they're doing it, but I'm beginning to worry I'm misplacing my real mail now when I throw out the rubbish

The canvasser was an interesting experience though. Basically came up and asked if I would be voting for them, I said no as it would be costing me x amount each year and why the hell would I vote for that? He just went "Umm, okay then. Good day." and trotted off, I can imagine that wasn't the first time he'd heard similar things that morning.

 

Darn, want to house-swap?

 

That is an interesting website. Looking up my MP has proved to me that she tells porkies as one of her 'Topics of Interest' was a government department I had a major issue with that almost cost me £5,250 but she was not in the least bit interested so I turned to my MSP and he helped me spectacularly well and the £5,250 erroneously deducted from me by the DWP was returned with interest.

PS: Just had a UKIP flyer through the door. Don't expect to get anything from the Tories, not where I stay. Not much love for that party up here in Scotland.

 

Given i live in an area where you could put a cardboard cut-out of Hitler forwards as labour candidate and they'd still vote for it [and the BNP numpties left for UKIP cos the BNP aren't racist enough any more...], it's unsurprising not one of the party leaders have bothered showing their face in the area...

 

I've had the usual establishment party leaflets through the door, they generally go straight in the bin though.

Nationally I've voted for a Green candidate, Sue Mac. There's little chance she'll win a seat, and obviously no chance the Greens are going to win the election, but I have faith in them that they'll at least try to honour their promises, stick to their beliefs and actually represent the people. I think they have integrity, which is extremely rare these days, and if there's any hope of real reform it will be people like them who'll bring it about.

Locally my options were more limited. I had candidates for Labour, Conservative, UKIP and the Lib Dems to choose from. For me UKIP and Tory are simply not options; regardless of the individual anyone who supports either of those parties will never have my vote as we clearly disagree at the most fundamental level on many issues. That left me Labour or Lib Dem. I actually supported the Lib Dems prior to the coalition, not in the sense that I liked them or really had any faith in them, rather they just seemed the best of a bad lot. Now though I really don't like the party at all. I did my best to watch the leaders' debate recently but I didn't even make it past the opening statements. When Nick Clegg said ""the country's in a lot better shape now than it was five years ago" I turned it off in disgust.


[this should be linking to 16 minutes and 18 seconds but it's going to 16m54s for some reason]

That said, a Lib Dem standing locally may be a good choice, and in fact the candidate is someone my mum used to work with, and is apparently quite a nice woman. I knew her by name prior to the election and remember her standing previously. The Labour candidate was not someone I was familiar with, his name's Simon Peter Parkes. I Googled his name and found a lot of very interesting results, including this video:



So it seemed my local Labour candidate was an interesting fellow, but perhaps lacking when it comes to rational thought and credibility. Initially I thought, understandably, that might make him a bad choice, but the more I thought about it the less it seemed to matter, given how bloody awful most politicians are he, I thought, at least has an open mind and seems to be fairly honest about his beliefs. Granted that might not extend to his politics though.

I did note though that he was from Whitby, and I'm in Derby, so I wondered if it was indeed the same person. Perhaps his past revelations had forced him to relocate.

Curious, I called my local Labour office and asked if the Simon Parkes standing locally had ever had sex with a hologram. The person on the phone was quite confused until they Googled the name themselves, they then assured me it was definitely not the same person. Truth be told I was a little disappointed.

They had the local Simon call me back and we had a chat for half an hour or so. We touched briefly on his lack of extra-terrestrial sexual encounters but focused mainly on more pertinent issues. I concluded he was a little less interesting than his more famed namesake, but seemed a decent enough bloke and probably not a bad choice for the local council.

Now I don't support Labour or Lib Dem. If Labour were more true to their working class roots I'd like them a lot more, but the "new" Labour we've had in more recent years are not much better than the Tories in my mind. Certainly I absolutely despised them when they were last in power under Blair and Brown. As for the Lib Dems, they've destroyed in the last five years what little credibility they had.

Where I live the Tories have majority support, followed by Labour. The other parties are just slivers of the pie chart.

I'm not one for tactical voting, generally speaking, but a vote for the Lib Dems locally would essentially be wasted. I don't support the party so I've no interest in voting out of principle. Realistically it's going to be Labour or Tory in my area and I certainly don't want Tories in power, locally or nationally.

All things considered I voted for Simon.

One thing I was honestly surprised by when I was looking for information on local candidates was the total lack of web presence they had. The official sites are pathetic.

In the case of the Lib Dems and my local candidate Deena Smith there are only a couple of very short posts about her, both of which are from 2009, almost six years old.

They've got contact details up for their parliamentary candidates but nothing in the way of profiles or statements. They've not even bothered naming the local candidates.

http://derbycitylibdems.org.uk/en/contact

Labour are worse as they don't seem to have information on their site about any candidates. I pointed this out to Simon and he told me he had provided a photo and statement for the website, as had the other Labour candidates, so apparently someone needs a kick up the arse in the Labour camp.

http://www.derbylabourparty.co.uk/contact-us.php

The Tories managed to do a better job: http://derbyconservatives.com/wordpress/councillors/

As did UKIP I'm sorry to say: http://ukipderbycity.org/local/

The Greens have the most information online though: http://derbyshiregreenparty.org.uk/

What amazes me in the cases of the Lib Dem and Labour sites is how they can be so woefully lacking in this day and age. How do they expect to engage with voters if they make no effort? Especially younger voters who will, presumably, turn to Google for information.

 

I knew it was coming. I don't get people at the door, though. Never have, in any house I've lived in. Maybe my name's on a list..

Either way. Not voting, as I've got at least one large issue with every party available to vote for, and I've no interest in voting for things I disagree with - Even in protest of bigger things I disagree with.

 

I think I once had someone come to the door at my old house but certainly in the five-ish years I've lived here I've only had flyers through the letterbox. Like I said above I've actually contacted them to talk about stuff this election, not the other way around.

 

Oh yay, election time!

I live one of the safest Tory constituencies in the UK here in rural Yorkshire (Skipton and Ripon), they could put a shaved Gorilla up for the seat here and land owners and yuppy types would vote it in because it's a 'good sort'.

Still, at least it saves me from worrying about whether my vote affects which of Ruthless, Gormless and Gutless we get for the next five years, whoever I vote for it won't be the Tory but he'll still win.