Tuesday, May 02, 2006

 

Local Elections: the current political front line

I know that delivering leaflets is the most humble of political activities and my recent couple of hours exercise doing just this was pretty unremarkable. But somehow, during it, I experienced the kind of pariah feeling which Conservatives must have felt throughout the nineties (or maybe it's always been like that for them, right from when Robert Peel founded them way back in the 1830s?).

It seemed to me I could everywhere see shadowy figures glinting meanly at me from behind lace curtains; I felt the shame of being John Prescott's representative on their doorstep; I half expected to be blamed personally for his lardy arsed transgressions and chased down garden paths by grey haired matrons screaming at me to eff off and calling me a 'lecherous Labour lackey'.

Fortunately none of this happened but the fact that I feared it might, says quite a bit about the plight of Tony Blair's party; alternatively, you might be thinking, it says quite a bit about me. I freely admit it could just be me being paranoid about voter attitudes and insufficiently up for the struggle. I'm pretty sure the latter hypothesis is about right but for the proof of the former, we'll have to await Friday morning.

Comments:
Don't despair! With the Tories and the media homing in on personalities rather than policies it's easy to forget all the good stuff Labour's done in the last nine years and only remember the bad. There's a little book produced by AMICUS that lists loads of achievements. A friend at Gloucester CLP has a copy and sometimes reads bits to us if we're flagging! I've mentioned on my blog today some of the things that keep me pounding the streets.....
 
Thanks for that Hughesey.
I've taken a peek at your site and it's provided some healing balm. But, the charge of 'you've done nothing' is easier to answer, I fear, than 'you're cocking things up'.
Skipper
 
As I understand it Labour did very badly the last time these particular local elections were held so that there may not be that much room for dramatic large-scale losses. Labour may also be adopting the old tactic of "talking up" the prospect of a poor performance, so that if it turns out less badly than expected they can present that as pretty good, in the circumstances.
 
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