Vote Old

Image credit: plastic hippo

In case you haven`t noticed, apparently we are about to have a election and the charming parliamentary constituency of Walsall South has proved to be the unlikely setting for what that election will be about.

Talking the borrowed dog for a Sunday morning walk in the magnificent Arboretum, I noticed a sign affixed to the bay window of a fairly average terraced house. There is nothing unusual or indeed wrong with people nailing their political colours to the mast especially when we are apparently about to have an election. Something else, however, caught my eye. There were two hand-written notes attached to the sign which at first glance resembled the sort of documents you find on your windscreen after you have parked the four by four across the gates of a crematorium or the public notices cable-tied to lamp posts informing you that your local primary school is about to be converted into an “aspirational” executive apartment complex to suit the lifestyles of heroic entrepreneurial wealth creators.

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Thirteen days

Chaos – mayhem – blackmail – a marriage made in merry Hell – the full extent of an electorate recklessly abusing democracy by rejecting a failed and corrupt government will become clear in about thirteen days. The Conservative party have not only lost the plot but have probably lost the May 2015 General Election.

After a long campaign of smears, personal attacks, untruths, preposterous spin and avoidance of answering straight questions, even the thickest of Tories realised that attacking the Miliband brand was making him more popular. They had a go at his dead dad which made even white van Essex man say “hang on a minute”. Constantly pushing a photograph of the unfortunate consumption of a bacon sandwich resulted in Cameron eating a hot dog at a picnic with a knife and fork. Think about that for moment and then reach for the mind bleach before asking if we deserve a Prime Minister that needs spin doctors to tell him how to eat.

Less than three weeks to go

If he only had the nerve

What seems to have been overlooked during the increasingly tawdry election circus is the simple fact that we are being asked to elect a government; not a president, not a king and not an emperor.

All this nonsense about a straight choice between Cameron and Miliband not only undermines parliamentary democracy but also re-enforces the dangerous reality TV notion that personality outweighs conviction, principle or political integrity and suggests that the merits and commitment of constituency candidates are meaningless. The future of the nation is a straight choice between a man who has two kitchens and a man who forgets to take his daughter home from the pub. Is this what democracy is about?

If only the decision was that simple. As the most recent televised debate demonstrated, with the opinion polls projecting no overall majority, we must now also judge the personalities of the also-rans as potential kingmakers. It seems astonishing that in the second decade of the 21st century, the majority of the media focussed on the statements made by 40 per cent of those brave enough to participate and the appearance of the remaining 60 per cent who bothered to turn up. Nigel`s suit was very nice and his hair style was immaculate but he was a bit sweaty. I didn`t like Ed`s tie at all and even though his suit was nicer than Nigel`s, his decision to employ that particular shade of lipstick was a disaster darling.

Buena Vista

Oye como va

Whilst we are being mesmerised by British politicians telling massive lies, something rather significant has taken place across the pond where a man once had a plan about a canal in Panama. Some bloke called Raul sat down for a chat with another bloke called Obama and after the brief mano y mano discussion actually shook hands. This might not seem important but if you were born in the 50s and remember childhood nightmares caused by the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban missile crisis, this rapprochement between the US and Cuba is nothing short of remarkable.

Cuba is more than crumbling buildings, ancient Chevrolets, cigars hand rolled on the thighs of young beauties and a tenacious clinging obsession with Marxism; it has the best rum and some of the best music ever created. Setting aside Guantanamo Bay, it looks like Fidel won the waiting game. It seems Cuba is no longer considered to be a rogue state cynically sponsoring and encouraging terrorism but has instead been transformed into a lucrative market. Perhaps the next POTUS, who might actually be a woman, will take a look at lifting the sanctions and embargos placed on Vietnam for having the downright cheek to defeat a global superpower in a war that ended 40 years ago.

Four weeks to go

By yon bonnie banks

There was a time when clairvoyance, mind-reading, second sight and extrasensory perception were considered to be witchcraft and anyone speaking in tongues would be burnt at the stake or thrown into a duck pond to see if they floated or not. In this more enlightened age, we allow desperate politicians to dabble in the dark arts free from any threat of inquisition, scrutiny or comparison to the relative buoyancy of an average mallard.