political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Have You Changed Your Mind?
Think back a month. Who had you intended to vote for a month ago, and who have you ACTUALLY voted for today?
I wonder if your blog has left you feeling a bit soiled today. All this time you thought you were talking to sensible conservatives, but the votes have gone to biggots and xenophobes... yuk.
A month ago was there was no question of my EU election voting intention. I have been a card carrying Tory and Tory voter for many years. Except for Edward Heath, who I despised. I am outraged that Brown, an unelected PM, should sign the EU treaty without the referendum promised in both the Labour and Tory General Election manifestos. Outraged but not entirely surprised. I don't care what it was called then or what it is called now, it is still the same treaty. To quote Daniel “He knows it, we know it, and he knows we know it”. No amount of weasel words changes that fact. We have been calculatingly and cynically lied to by that dreadful Son of the Manse; and even though it is not unexpected, it rankles. Had there been a referendum and the majority agreed to the expansionist EU, I would have been a bit miffed but would have accepted it. So what about the Tory pledge at the last election to hold a referendum? A month ago I was truly expecting Cameron to have the balls to say “Sod Gordon, I promised you a referendum so we shall stick to our manifesto pledge and hold one when and if we come to power, no matter what” But the closer we have moved to today’s elections, the more the proposed Tory referendum has been hedged about with ifs and buts and caveats. So my vote today was instead for UKIP. It had two objectives. The first was to let David know that I, personally, want more than woolly words on a referendum. And if he still hasn’t ‘got it’ by the next GE then I shall seriously consider doing the same again (along with many tens of thousand others, no doubt). The second was to add my two pennyworth to perhaps help to bring about the swifter downfall of the worst PM this country has had in my lifetime, if not ever, by ensuring that he comes at least fourth in this election. The matter of the promised referendum is an important issue of trust, and it chimes in well with what is going on elsewhere in Westminster. I am sick to the back teeth of being lied to by these thieving Westminster b*******s. I am really pissed that the almost universal response by MPs when found with their hands in the till has been “I’ll pay it back, so that’s OK, let’s move on” NO IT ISN’T OK. It’s not OK until the law says it’s OK. And the party leaders are NOT the law. They should have nothing to do with suspending or punishing offending MPs. It should be a police matter. I am even sicker that the failed politicians making up the EU politburo are living so high on the hog that they dare not even have their books audited. Why should we pay them a penny more? I’m past state retirement age and still working. I’ve always paid my taxes. I don’t owe any MP a living. I am entitled to expect “straight” MPs I vote because I feel that it is my duty. My vote is the only weapon in my political arsenal, although I am beginning to believe it may not be enough. And I really don’t want any MP, bent or otherwise, telling me that because I voted this way or that, I “wasted” my vote. Just by the act of attending the polling station you have taken political action, even if you spoil your paper. In nearly 50 years of keenly following politics it has never been so clear to me just how many dishonourable politicians there are, nor have I ever felt so let down or so angry. “A plague on all your houses” does nothing to convey just how totally outraged I am with them all.
UKIP at the last moment if only to give Dave a kick up the arse. Tory for the county. Like Enoch, I was born a Tory, and, God willing, I will die one if the EUSSR or Common Purpose don't brainwash me first.
If Cameron had guaranteed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty regardless of whether it had been ratified he would have had my vote. As it was UKIP got it at the very last moment.
I was going to vote BNP for Europe but voted UKIP Voted for an Independent at local level as I could not bring myself to vote for any of the main three bunch. Roger 10.43pm my teller had an amazing pair of boobies with a pretty little kerchief stuffed in the middle,oh! how I dribbled!
I voted Tory, Iain. A month ago - I was a Party member - I'd have voted SNP. Up here in the Western Isles we currently face the very divisive issue of a proposed Sunday ferry service, an imminent threat since the autumn of 2007. Through some twenty months I had repeatedly lobbied my MP (Angus MacNeil)and MSP (Alasdair Allan) on this issue. The problem is not that they are on the wrong side. The trouble is that they refuse to take a side at all - even after a public challenge on Monday - and, as far as I was concerned, they finally lucked out.
The issue is especially fraught here as the state-owned ferry company, Caledonian MacBrayne, belongs outright and in law and fact to the First Minister, Alex salmond; and because - in an extraodinary and widely derided ploy - CalMac now insist they are legally obliged to provide Sunday sailings under the Equality Act 2004, on the basis of 'a senior counsel's Opinion', paid for out of our taxes, they have repeatedly refused to make public. (At no point have MacNeil or Allan criticised even that gross discourtesy to the taxpayer; far less the preposterous premise of the argument or the threat of the 'lor.'
I have voted SNP at every election since the European Parliament poll of 1984 - so long ago I was in school uniform.
Not least from your own meditations, I felt more and more persuaded the Conservative Party platform for Europe was the most credible and I was really impressed by David Cameron's handling of the expenses issue a couple of weeks back - the undoubted moral anger and the robust, assertive leadership.
Back in 1987, I demonstrated against The Lady herself, visiting Edinburgh during that general election.
It is still hard to believe I have finally voted for her party. Like many, it was really a vote against the 'political class' - a new breed of careerists who judge every issue by self-serving advantage, and sit on the fence whenever opportunity affords. (Sunday ferries are perceived as the Third Rail of Hebridean politics.)
207 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 207 of 207I considered voting Labour and decided to abstain.
I wonder if your blog has left you feeling a bit soiled today. All this time you thought you were talking to sensible conservatives, but the votes have gone to biggots and xenophobes... yuk.
A month ago was there was no question of my EU election voting intention. I have been a card carrying Tory and Tory voter for many years. Except for Edward Heath, who I despised.
I am outraged that Brown, an unelected PM, should sign the EU treaty without the referendum promised in both the Labour and Tory General Election manifestos. Outraged but not entirely surprised.
I don't care what it was called then or what it is called now, it is still the same treaty. To quote Daniel “He knows it, we know it, and he knows we know it”. No amount of weasel words changes that fact.
We have been calculatingly and cynically lied to by that dreadful Son of the Manse; and even though it is not unexpected, it rankles.
Had there been a referendum and the majority agreed to the expansionist EU, I would have been a bit miffed but would have accepted it.
So what about the Tory pledge at the last election to hold a referendum?
A month ago I was truly expecting Cameron to have the balls to say “Sod Gordon, I promised you a referendum so we shall stick to our manifesto pledge and hold one when and if we come to power, no matter what”
But the closer we have moved to today’s elections, the more the proposed Tory referendum has been hedged about with ifs and buts and caveats.
So my vote today was instead for UKIP.
It had two objectives.
The first was to let David know that I, personally, want more than woolly words on a referendum. And if he still hasn’t ‘got it’ by the next GE then I shall seriously consider doing the same again (along with many tens of thousand others, no doubt).
The second was to add my two pennyworth to perhaps help to bring about the swifter downfall of the worst PM this country has had in my lifetime, if not ever, by ensuring that he comes at least fourth in this election.
The matter of the promised referendum is an important issue of trust, and it chimes in well with what is going on elsewhere in Westminster.
I am sick to the back teeth of being lied to by these thieving Westminster b*******s.
I am really pissed that the almost universal response by MPs when found with their hands in the till has been “I’ll pay it back, so that’s OK, let’s move on”
NO IT ISN’T OK.
It’s not OK until the law says it’s OK. And the party leaders are NOT the law. They should have nothing to do with suspending or punishing offending MPs. It should be a police matter.
I am even sicker that the failed politicians making up the EU politburo are living so high on the hog that they dare not even have their books audited. Why should we pay them a penny more?
I’m past state retirement age and still working. I’ve always paid my taxes. I don’t owe any MP a living. I am entitled to expect “straight” MPs
I vote because I feel that it is my duty. My vote is the only weapon in my political arsenal, although I am beginning to believe it may not be enough.
And I really don’t want any MP, bent or otherwise, telling me that because I voted this way or that, I “wasted” my vote. Just by the act of attending the polling station you have taken political action, even if you spoil your paper.
In nearly 50 years of keenly following politics it has never been so clear to me just how many dishonourable politicians there are, nor have I ever felt so let down or so angry.
“A plague on all your houses” does nothing to convey just how totally outraged I am with them all.
UKIP at the last moment if only to give Dave a kick up the arse. Tory for the county.
Like Enoch, I was born a Tory, and, God willing, I will die one if the EUSSR or Common Purpose don't brainwash me first.
If Cameron had guaranteed a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty regardless of whether it had been ratified he would have had my vote. As it was UKIP got it at the very last moment.
I was going to vote BNP for Europe but voted UKIP
Voted for an Independent at local level as I could not bring myself to vote for any of the main three bunch.
Roger 10.43pm my teller had an amazing pair of boobies with a pretty little kerchief stuffed in the middle,oh! how I dribbled!
I voted Tory, Iain. A month ago - I was a Party member - I'd have voted SNP. Up here in the Western Isles we currently face the very divisive issue of a proposed Sunday ferry service, an imminent threat since the autumn of 2007. Through some twenty months I had repeatedly lobbied my MP (Angus MacNeil)and MSP (Alasdair Allan) on this issue. The problem is not that they are on the wrong side. The trouble is that they refuse to take a side at all - even after a public challenge on Monday - and, as far as I was concerned, they finally lucked out.
The issue is especially fraught here as the state-owned ferry company, Caledonian MacBrayne, belongs outright and in law and fact to the First Minister, Alex salmond; and because - in an extraodinary and widely derided ploy - CalMac now insist they are legally obliged to provide Sunday sailings under the Equality Act 2004, on the basis of 'a senior counsel's Opinion', paid for out of our taxes, they have repeatedly refused to make public. (At no point have MacNeil or Allan criticised even that gross discourtesy to the taxpayer; far less the preposterous premise of the argument or the threat of the 'lor.'
I have voted SNP at every election since the European Parliament poll of 1984 - so long ago I was in school uniform.
Not least from your own meditations, I felt more and more persuaded the Conservative Party platform for Europe was the most credible and I was really impressed by David Cameron's handling of the expenses issue a couple of weeks back - the undoubted moral anger and the robust, assertive leadership.
Back in 1987, I demonstrated against The Lady herself, visiting Edinburgh during that general election.
It is still hard to believe I have finally voted for her party. Like many, it was really a vote against the 'political class' - a new breed of careerists who judge every issue by self-serving advantage, and sit on the fence whenever opportunity affords. (Sunday ferries are perceived as the Third Rail of Hebridean politics.)
Post a Comment