13 December - Bring back Anna Firth
After keeping me up until 4 a.m. to see their results, congratulations
are due to David, James and Abena for being the borough’s three MPs. Perhaps Joe
Robertson, the previously unknown candidate for Erith & Thamesmead deserves
a pat on the back too for turning that constituency into a Labour marginal but
he should have done more. Maybe the Mayor, who
did the announcement honours, will learn to pronounce Abena’s surname now.
The usual Bexley crew were in attendance at the count, I declined an invitation,
who would want to talk to me, but apparently I missed John Ferry’s more than usually gaudy
tie, some scruffy looking Bexley Directors who have not recently encountered a razor and a good victory speech
from James Brokenshire. Better prepared than Boris Johnson’s no doubt.
If Joe’s candidacy had been announced before Nomination Day, if he hadn’t buggered
off to Eltham to help Louie French, if he had been outside Abbey Wood Station
when I came out of it at 6:30 on Wednesday evening it may have been different.
It was as if the Conservatives didn’t care. Didn’t capitalise on Teresa Pearce’s
withdrawal, didn’t capitalise on the incomers drawn to the area by Crossrail,
didn’t capitalise on Thamesmead and Erith voting Leave (maybe not the Plumstead
end of the constituency) in the referendum and generally being lack lustre.
Where were John Davey and Philip Read in this campaign? Sore that their favoured
man was whisked away to Batley at the last minute presumably.
Fortunately for right wingers the Tories further north ran a better campaign.
Watching all those northern industrial towns come crashing down into Boris Johnson’s
clutches was a sight to behold, steel making towns, railway centres, former
mining areas all painted blue and John McDonnell on TV saying his was a centrist
party. If the blinkers are not removed Boris Johnson will be in No. 10 for ten years.
Clearly I should spend less time looking at Labour supporting web sites and
listening to radio phone ins. In both 1987 and 1992 I won the office sweepstake
for guessing the election results. Listening to real people is obviously a much
better thing to do than listen to a small number of loud mouths trying to
masquerade as a well organised army of rational thinkers.
In recent days I became a pessimist who thought the Conservatives might be lucky
to secure a majority of 25 seats.
With Erith & Thamesmead no longer a shoo-in for Sadiq Khan next year maybe the
area will benefit from a few of his bribes. Is the DLR to Abbey Wood too much to hope for?
With extreme left wing politics consigned to the dustbin for five years maybe my
BT and Shell shares plus two Jewish friends will be safe from Corbyn’s clutches along with my pension,
savings, children’s inheritance and single person Council Tax discount. But no free Broadband.
Actually I could be wrong on that. Yesterday afternoon the Technical Director of
my ISP called me to enquire if the Christmas hamper he sent me had arrived
safely and asked if I would revert to my old beta testing role by being the first
of his customers to be given a 330 meg line.
If Bonkers fails to update during January you may assume it has all gone Corbyn shaped.
One bit of bad news… You will have heard me say I never watch the telly. I did last night obviously and discovered
that every 30 minutes or so it turns itself off, sometimes rebooting itself and other times not.
Ten years old and it does that to me!
Commiserations to Anna down in Canterbury, my big disappointment of the night.