23 April (Part 2) - Eenie and Meanie but no Minie or Moe
Somebody has just told me he knows which way I will vote in two weeks time. I wish
I did, I’m still dithering and trying to rationalise a sensible choice.
If Nigel Farage was standing in Erith & Thamesmead there would be less of a dilemma.
Teresa Pearce was right to call me a plague on all your houses sort of bloke. I am also
utterly sick of the main stream media’s blatant bias, especially the BBC’s, and feel like
rebelling against it. Alas there is no Nigel Farage character in E & T. UKIP has been
a total let down here so far.
Yesterday I found myself coming to the conclusion I would have to vote for
Teresa Pearce and pretend she doesn’t belong to a party whose main policies
appear to be still as I have always seen them; based on envy and a desire to bash the wealth creators. I found myself
looking at Teresa’s old election leaflets to see if I could bring myself to hold my nose
and jump into her pool.
I could take issue with one of them but on the whole Teresa’s leaflets from 2010 were really rather good.
Did she ever hold the annual meetings? If so she forgot to tell me, but even
four out of five for political promises is not at all bad.
Teresa was described in one of her leaflets as a down to earth plain speaking
sort of woman. There were a lot of good quotes in that one. Click the image
below to see the source document.
Did
she live up to the hype?
When Elwyn Bryant and I were seriously libelled by the
man at the end of Conservative councillor Peter Craske’s phone line, Elwyn’s MP wriggled all
around Bexley to avoid helping. True he admitted to being horrified by what had
spewed from Craske’s internet connection but would James Brokenshire actually help?
No way, he even had his office staff tell Elwyn
he had no appointments left for his surgery but when Elwyn asked a friend to
seek one a few minutes later; no problems at all.
James Brokenshire is a career politician, a proven waste of space and not the
sort of MP to help a constituent when the going gets tough.
Teresa on the other hand took no persuading to stand by me and sit through
difficult meetings with Bexley’s police and was not afraid to give me her
valuable and honest opinion of them. Just as promised in
Pledge No.5, she will call a spade a spade when she has to.
If it wasn’t for my long memory of Labour government disappointments
I know who I would be voting for. I may still do so, you don’t need a very
long memory to remember Cameroonian cock ups. I suspect some of what I
object to there can be laid at the Lib Dems’ door but that would say little for
Cameron’s sense of honour in my opinion. Power for power‘s sake?
The alternative to Teresa is Anna Firth. If I can read between the lines I don’t think her
opinion of Bexley council is a lot better than mine. She is too clever to say so
but unless I have been totally duped I suspect she would be a much better
constituency MP than James Brokenshire or David Evennett.
I can understand why Erith & Thamesmead Conservatives took a trip down the A21
to find their candidate, there is simply no Tory talent any closer but it does
put Anna Firth at a disadvantage. Look at these two slogans…
Five years ago Teresa pledged to be “A strong local
voice for Erith & Thamesmead“ and now Anna is following the same path. “A strong
voice for Erith & Thamesmead“. Well she could hardly claim to be local could she?
On the other hand choosing local is not always the best thing.
Look what UKIP
did in Erith & Thamesmead and what has happened since.
It’s not for me to make voting recommendations but I am probably a little closer to the action than the
majority of voters having met all three of the E & T candidates mentioned so far today.
Graham Moore for the English Democrats has been on the campaign trail too but, and I
wish this wasn’t so and that there was a less demeaning metaphor, but in my
opinion (again) , Erith & Thamesmead is most definitely a two horse race.
It’s a shame that Thanet and Nigel are sixty miles away and UKIP Bexley’s former chairman grabbed his kilt
and ran away to Scotland. With David Coburn here Bexley Conservatives may have been routed,
but they have escaped their just desserts again.
E & T hasn’t even got Chris Attard. He lives here but is trying his luck for
UKIP in Bexleyheath and Crayford. If you live there and favour career politicians who steer a careful path
rather than offer help when needed, David Evennett is your man. If not both
Chris and
Stef Borella deserve attention.
Other candidates are available in Erith & Thamesmead…
Sid Cordell, Christian People’s Alliance. Ann Garrett, Green Party. Graham
Moore, English Democrats. Simon Waddington, Liberal Democrats.
All original election leaflets available by clicking the extracts shown.