Thurrock local election running commentary - The Final Conflict

And so Election Day is here…

It should have been a wild ride of doorstep debates with eager candidates vying for my vote; instead, it’s been the quintessential example of apathy on the part of the prospective candidates.  There has only been one visit to my residence by the Labour candidate and two leaflets pushed through my letterbox, also by the Labour candidate.  I may as well call Val Morris-Cook (no relation), the Grays Riverside councillor as it seems to me to be the inevitable conclusion of such a lacklustre campaign.  If it weren’t for the Voting Card in my in-tray, I wouldn’t even have realised that there was a campaign going on at all.

Grays Riverside is, and probably will remain in perpetuity, a Labour safe seat.  It will remain so until the rival candidates get up off of their gigantic behinds and actually do something to change it, to make people believe that their vote is worth casting.

Democracy in Grays Riverside is little more than a word used when election time comes around but means little else.  It is only when all the candidates make the effort that democracy means anything because then people can make informed decisions on who should represent them on the council.  Low voter turnout numbers are not the fault of the electorate; they are the fault of the lazy candidates who refuse to work for our vote.  The people who fought and died for our right for democratic elections must be spinning in their graves.

As for whom I will be voting for tonight, I will not be voting for anyone.  My Voting Card will be left discarded and unused yet again, despite my enthusiasm to actually participate in a meaningful way rather than the protest votes I have cast only three times in the past on General Elections.  I could have voted for Labour but that would not be right and proper, as I have had no option to make an informed choice as to whether she is the right candidate from the ones on offer.  I could also go to the Polling Station and spoil my ballot paper but then my vote would be wasted anyway so I may as well just not vote.

I will, however, be voting in the referendum on the Alternative Voting system although I am still in two minds at the time of writing this blog.  Tomorrow, I will be posting my decision on AV and my reasons for it.