Bitterness, fighting and games of politics with people’s lives; I smell an election in the air

Today is an important day. No, not because I have just 17 days until I fly over to Florida for two weeks. It is in fact the beginning of a 5-week (or, to be more precise, 37-day) local election campaign. Officially.

I say that because the dial (ranging from one to ten) on the pre-election spin machine is already set to a fairly moderate 6 (with constant yet only slight increases), with fighting, playing dangerous games of politics with people’s lives and biased newspapers.

To start, let me give you a brief background of my election history. This is the first election (local or otherwise) that I have sought to take a strong, active interest in. However, the first year I can vaguely remember was the year that my mum failed miserably to get elected for the Conservatives on what was then Gillingham Council.

I cannot remember exactly what year it was, but it was whilst I was at Meredale Infants school, so I would have been between 5 and 7 years-old. The school was shut on Polling Day (like most were) and I accompanied my mum down to the polling station, which was my sister’s school.

It is safe to say that I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I still asked her who she voted for. ‘It’s a secret vote,” came her response. So I nagged her for hours (as you do at that age) but she wouldn’t answer me. Instead, I asked my dad who he voted for when he came home from work. “You’re mother,” was his reply. By process of elimination, I would guess (and more importantly hope) that my mum did to!

Then in 1997 I made two shameful errors. As a seven year-old boy, I could be forgiven for thinking (like many people) that Tony Blair would do this Country good, when I was stood in the Mall cheering John Major’s car going into Buckingham Palace, then Mr. Blair’s car heading the same way.

The other came when a promising failure of the 1992 election in Gillingham, Paul Clark, posted a leaflet through the door. On the back of the leaflet was a poster for people’s windows, so, again as a hugely uninformed seven year-old, I stuck it in our kitchen window (not that many people would see it). Fortunately, my Dad took it straight down, threw it in the bin, and quickly showed me the error of my way. Paul Clark, however, is still our MP ten years on.

In 2001 I recorded the BBC election night coverage, and was disappointed not to see the Conservatives win, but laughed as we saw John Prescott’s fight again. In 2005 I learned that my dad usually stayed up to see our Constituency result (just 254 votes in it, Mr. Clark must be scared going into the next election), and shortly after I joined the party.

This year I have already been on street stalls, delivered leaflets and joined Reh as he canvasses his new patch. It’s opened my eyes up to the diverse array of opinions people hold. And how many people believe the Labour-biased rubbish that is printed by the local ‘rag’, the Medway News.

Under a bold banner in the letters page, Cllr Griffiths (Lab, Twydall) says that Medway suffers from broken Tory promises, that the Labour group on Medway Council have proposed half-price bus fares and funding for alley gates. Deputy Leader of the Conservative group on Medway Council, Cllr Jarrett, hit back in the Medway Messenger, a more moderate local paper, factually revealing that all present Labour Councillors present at the budget meeting voted against half-priced bus fares. He promised more spending on schools and care for the elderly, and spoke of an opposition that seeks nothing other than to play politics with people’s lives.

There’s something lingering in the air, and for once it’s not coming from the river.

I smell an election, and it smells great!