Thurrock local election running commentary 1

This was originally submitted to Your Thurrock but it wasn't posted so here it is.

The first shots in the war to win my vote were taken last Saturday (16 April) when the Labour candidate for the Grays Riverside ward took up the challenge to convince me to vote for her.  Amazingly, it really was the candidate and not one of the party faithful who knocked on my door so I have awarded her some bonus points.

Starting off with the initial question of whether I’ve voted for Labour in the past and after telling her that I was willing to be convinced this time around, the candidate launched into her sales pitch.  I have to say that for someone who claimed not to have read my blog, she was certainly saying everything I wanted to hear – that she was willing to put aside party politics and work together with all parties in the interest of doing what’s right for the community and so on – and that started alarm bells ringing.  Was she really telling the truth or telling me what I wanted to hear because she had either read, or was told the substance of, my blog?  Politicians aren’t particularly known for telling the truth when they are fishing for votes and her comments did seem as if they had been prepared.

If the candidate in question has decided to read my blogs in the future then she may well believe from this mini-blog that she has no hope of convincing me but she’d be wrong as I am reserving judgement until the other candidates have had a crack at me.  One thing is for certain, Grays Riverside Ward is a Labour stronghold, being held entirely by that party, but the voter turn out in that ward is terribly low and with control of Thurrock Council on a knife-edge, each candidate is going to have to pull out all the stops regardless of whether they are in a relatively safe seat or not.  All it will take is for one candidate to convince more people to make the effort to go out and vote and control of the council could swing towards another party or solidify the position as it is now.

There are four more candidates in Grays Riverside Ward – Conservative, Liberal Democrat, UKIP and BNP – and there isn’t much time to go before the election.  Come on, you guys, come and get my vote!