General Election 2015

The 2015 General Election campaign seems to have dragged on for ever, or so it seems. Having fixed term governments means that you know exactly when the next General Election will be, unlike when an Election is called because of something like a Vote of No Confidence and the current Government loosing and 'going to the polls.' It's also not a 'Two Horse Race' this time with just Labour and Conservative, so we have to contend with all the other minor parties such as U.K.I.P. and even the S.N.P. weighing in as well as Liberal Democrats. I have heard that around 6 million people have not even registered to vote, which seems idiotic. So, when we get another 'hung parliament' as we're very likely to have, those who don't turn out to vote have no right to say 'we don't like the government' or 'we don't like 'The Cuts' ' or whatever as they didn't make an effort to vote and make a decision on the next government. I think that it took long enough for people to get the vote, you only have to think of the Suffragettes, those who even died for the cause of not just women's votes, but men's as well (you have to remember that not all men could vote up until fairly early in the 20th Century, and the over 21. It wasn't until around 1969 when the voting age in this country was lowered to 18.) This is why I think it so important that everyone should at least make an effort to vote in all elections, regardless of which party it is or what your political views are.

I have had exactly one lot of door-to-door canvassing from Labour. Well, at least I can say they have made an effort.  The other parties have stuffed their leaflets through the door and Labour and Conservative have gone to a lot of bother to actually post their leaflets, but still only Labour have made an effort to come and speak to me but then it wasn't the actual candidate. They really should make the effort to come and speak to me personally if they want my voteWhen I lived in Bedford I threw down the challenge to all prospective candidates from all the local political parties to come and speak to me on my doorstep. I ended up in quite a long conversation via email with the Conservative candidate, Richard Fuller and he did make quite a good representation of his policies for Bedford (I think it was a local election, not a General Election, but I forget now.) I didn't hear anything from any of the other major parties so they didn't get the vote. I did the same with the last General Election and only the Liberal Democrats made any sort of effort so they got my vote. I'm afraid if the parties want to make some sort of effort then they have to make the effort to come and speak to me face-to-face. I'm not sure who to vote for this time, unfortunately and may not know up to the very last minute on Polling Day 7th May.