I am about to waste my vote.
I have no desire to waste it, I would like it to make a real difference, but the facts of the matter are clear, whatever I vote, whoever I vote for, will make absolutely no difference to the outcome because I live in a constituency which is so safe that when my MP was adopted by his constituency committee he was handed a job for life.
There are of course a number of these seats, approximately half of our MP's (both Labour and Conservative) have this kind of security which is why the real election is being fought in those constituencies which are more volatile.
It is also the reason that the Labour Party is focusing its energies on Carlisle, which is a much more marginal seat.
So far we have received a mailing from UKIP on which I have already blogged and a letter from our MP outlining the many good things that he has done for those of us who live in the constituency.
I used to to receive an email from his office on a fairly regular basis to which I would respond by questioning the claims made, challenging some of the assertions and suggesting that if Scotland voted Yes, then the border should be redrawn to include Carlisle.
The response to my emails was that I stopped receiving the mailings and when his plan to hold hands along Hadrian's Wall ended somewhat ignominiously, he then built a great heap of badly painted stones in Gretna, which as far as I know is still there, not having been removed.
So I can now decide, given that I have the luxury, how to waste my vote.
Do I vote for the Labour Candidate, do I make a protest against Labour's not being sufficiently socialist or progressive or anti-austerity and vote Green?
It is of course, both a luxury and a sadness, because whatever I decide to do will affect neither the outcome nor the development of policies, once a Government has been elected.
I could of course join with the Electoral Reform Society and argue for a change to the first past the post system, or I could argue for a change in the way elections are handled with perhaps larger constituencies electing representative panels rather than individuals, or I could simply choose to waste my vote by not voting at all.
Most of the people that I discuss these matters with suggest that our MP is an honourable man and a good constituency MP and I have no doubt that the first part of that statement is true.
I also know that he has responded to pressure from for example 38 Degrees Members to meet.
Indeed I once had an opportunity to invite him and the other two candidates five years ago to address a meeting that I convened in Penrith.
The audience was a group of older people, many of whom were instinctively in tune with his party and its policies.
Everything went well until an issue arose about access at a Surgery which I attend and in which the access for the elderly and those in wheelchairs is simply impossible.
His view was that a new surgery was unnecessary because, he observed, if you cannot get upstairs to see the Doctor, they will come down to you ..... Mmm?
So I decided not to waste my vote voting for him and wasted it by voting Labour instead, it was a tribal thing, but it was also clear that the Labour Candidate would also be a good constituency MP, as indeed would the Motorcycling riding Liberal Candidate.
But now things are different.
The outcome of this election is too important for a vote to be wasted.
Despite the claims in the letter I received from the MP the economy is still in a Mess with an increasing public debt.
The secession of Scotland from the UK is still on the Agenda, at least in Scotland.
The whole business of our having a grown up relationship with the rest of Europe and the chaos that will ensue if there is a referendum.
Taxation, with the poorest still paying the price of economic mismanagement and with an even higher price about to be imposed with the proposed saving of £12 billion.
Housing, with the continued stasis in house building and the rise in generation rent and the collapse in public housing through Right to Buy.
As I observed in one of my email exchanges with the MP, we know who got all the pies!
He may be a pleasant person, I am sure he would be both a gracious host and a well behaved guest but his party is still seen as the nasty party firmly on the side of the wealthiest.
Then there are the big ticket issues which will have to be addressed in the next Parliament one of which may be the biggest ticket of all, is the future of Trident, which will raise all the issues of employment, security, the deployment of our armed forces and the cost of what in some ways is a vanity project for the UK because it is under the de facto command of the US.
Another big ticket issue is the NHS.
As an Addendum to my last blog I had to fill a prescription on Easter Sunday, the nearest Pharmacy to Carlisle was in Keswick a seventy mile round trip from my house.
At least the Doctor in the out of hours service was sensible enough to Fax the prescription through so that I could go there directly at 2 00 pm before the Pharmacy closed at 4 00 pm.
The West Coast line and the continued Bransonisation of once public services is also a matter for concern and hopefully action in the next Parliament.
So when I waste my vote, as is inevitable, do I waste it by writing the name Nichola Sturgeon onto the Ballot Paper?
Do I encourage the Green Party to make an electoral pact with the Labour Party and encourage them to continue to put socialist ideals, green values and people at the heart of their policymaking?
Or do I continue to put my tribal loyalties first?
Whatever I do what I will be hoping for is a progressive anti-austerity Government to emerge from the horse trading that is happening in those parts where the result will be closer and the upsets greater.
I have no desire to waste it, I would like it to make a real difference, but the facts of the matter are clear, whatever I vote, whoever I vote for, will make absolutely no difference to the outcome because I live in a constituency which is so safe that when my MP was adopted by his constituency committee he was handed a job for life.
There are of course a number of these seats, approximately half of our MP's (both Labour and Conservative) have this kind of security which is why the real election is being fought in those constituencies which are more volatile.
It is also the reason that the Labour Party is focusing its energies on Carlisle, which is a much more marginal seat.
So far we have received a mailing from UKIP on which I have already blogged and a letter from our MP outlining the many good things that he has done for those of us who live in the constituency.
I used to to receive an email from his office on a fairly regular basis to which I would respond by questioning the claims made, challenging some of the assertions and suggesting that if Scotland voted Yes, then the border should be redrawn to include Carlisle.
The response to my emails was that I stopped receiving the mailings and when his plan to hold hands along Hadrian's Wall ended somewhat ignominiously, he then built a great heap of badly painted stones in Gretna, which as far as I know is still there, not having been removed.
So I can now decide, given that I have the luxury, how to waste my vote.
Do I vote for the Labour Candidate, do I make a protest against Labour's not being sufficiently socialist or progressive or anti-austerity and vote Green?
It is of course, both a luxury and a sadness, because whatever I decide to do will affect neither the outcome nor the development of policies, once a Government has been elected.
I could of course join with the Electoral Reform Society and argue for a change to the first past the post system, or I could argue for a change in the way elections are handled with perhaps larger constituencies electing representative panels rather than individuals, or I could simply choose to waste my vote by not voting at all.
Most of the people that I discuss these matters with suggest that our MP is an honourable man and a good constituency MP and I have no doubt that the first part of that statement is true.
I also know that he has responded to pressure from for example 38 Degrees Members to meet.
Indeed I once had an opportunity to invite him and the other two candidates five years ago to address a meeting that I convened in Penrith.
The audience was a group of older people, many of whom were instinctively in tune with his party and its policies.
Everything went well until an issue arose about access at a Surgery which I attend and in which the access for the elderly and those in wheelchairs is simply impossible.
His view was that a new surgery was unnecessary because, he observed, if you cannot get upstairs to see the Doctor, they will come down to you ..... Mmm?
So I decided not to waste my vote voting for him and wasted it by voting Labour instead, it was a tribal thing, but it was also clear that the Labour Candidate would also be a good constituency MP, as indeed would the Motorcycling riding Liberal Candidate.
But now things are different.
The outcome of this election is too important for a vote to be wasted.
Despite the claims in the letter I received from the MP the economy is still in a Mess with an increasing public debt.
The secession of Scotland from the UK is still on the Agenda, at least in Scotland.
The whole business of our having a grown up relationship with the rest of Europe and the chaos that will ensue if there is a referendum.
Taxation, with the poorest still paying the price of economic mismanagement and with an even higher price about to be imposed with the proposed saving of £12 billion.
Housing, with the continued stasis in house building and the rise in generation rent and the collapse in public housing through Right to Buy.
As I observed in one of my email exchanges with the MP, we know who got all the pies!
He may be a pleasant person, I am sure he would be both a gracious host and a well behaved guest but his party is still seen as the nasty party firmly on the side of the wealthiest.
Then there are the big ticket issues which will have to be addressed in the next Parliament one of which may be the biggest ticket of all, is the future of Trident, which will raise all the issues of employment, security, the deployment of our armed forces and the cost of what in some ways is a vanity project for the UK because it is under the de facto command of the US.
Another big ticket issue is the NHS.
As an Addendum to my last blog I had to fill a prescription on Easter Sunday, the nearest Pharmacy to Carlisle was in Keswick a seventy mile round trip from my house.
At least the Doctor in the out of hours service was sensible enough to Fax the prescription through so that I could go there directly at 2 00 pm before the Pharmacy closed at 4 00 pm.
The West Coast line and the continued Bransonisation of once public services is also a matter for concern and hopefully action in the next Parliament.
So when I waste my vote, as is inevitable, do I waste it by writing the name Nichola Sturgeon onto the Ballot Paper?
Do I encourage the Green Party to make an electoral pact with the Labour Party and encourage them to continue to put socialist ideals, green values and people at the heart of their policymaking?
Or do I continue to put my tribal loyalties first?
Whatever I do what I will be hoping for is a progressive anti-austerity Government to emerge from the horse trading that is happening in those parts where the result will be closer and the upsets greater.
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