Local Elections 2007
03/05/07 15:49 |
Personal
However, if I did, I would not be able to live with my guilt at betraying the people who fought so hard to gain me the vote and, more importantly, I would disqualify myself from moaning about the winners in the years to come. So, I was faced with a dilemma; I could not bring myself to vote for the two main parties but I did not want to waste my right to vote.
It was tempting to use the excuse that these are not 'real' elections anyway and the people standing are not 'real' politicians, but in some ways the elections for a local authority are more important and the effects more closely felt.
The answer to my problem appeared to come through my letterbox this morning. I live on The Isle of Sheppey in Kent and have been here for about nine years. It's a place where the scenery mirrors the population, in that it can be extremely attractive, or just plain ugly. As an 'islander' we tend to look a bit inwards from the rest of 'civilisation' and with the government spending 100 million pounds on a new bridge, we are suspicious of the desire to develop large swathes of the countryside.
The election leaflet of the independent party 'Sheppey First!' seemed to be very appealing, especially as it was fighting against the changes to the local schools, unrestricted new building, being treated as a poor relation to the mainland wards and the most eye catching of all, the claim that “Sheppey has suffered for years because more money has been taken from the island than is spent here.”
It seemed I had found a party I could support, until I looked at the bottom of the page to read the leaflet had been printed by a firm that was not on the island and not even in Kent, but in that great county across the estuary, Essex!!
It seems that 'Sheppey First!' have shot themselves in the foot and I am now back to square one.
My house is seeming to be very cosy at the moment!!
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