[Acrylic-bob]

As a side issue, I have just, in ten years of residence at this address, recieved the first ever piece of election literature from the Labour Party . This election must obviously be more hotly contested than I previously thought.

However nice it is that I am at least recognised as an elector this year, I rather wish they had saved themselves the trouble.

One side of the glossy A4 sheet informs me, twice, that "Britain" is "moving forward" and also that "Britain is Working" and urges me not to "let the Tories wreck it".
After eight years in power and the countless billions of taxpayers hard-earned money, some of it mine, that New Labour have administered, I would be scandalised and horrified to learn that the country was doing anything other than "moving forward".
Do they have so little confidence in the results of their stewardship of the national economy that they feel the need to reassure me on this point, not once, but twice?

As for the "Tories", I am sure that if the Conservative party took it into their collective heads to wreck anything there is very little that I, as an individual, could do to prevent them. What a ridiculously redundant phrase.

There then follows a bulleted list that appears to be a minor masterpiece of hopeful ambiguity. It neither says that this is what New Labour have accomplished in their previous eight year administration, nor does it say that the list is what they hope to achieve during the term of the new parliament.

Let us examine just one of these bulleted statements, which will probably give a flavour of the rest of them.

"Your child achieving more
modern schools for all, strong discipline, and a guaranteed place in training, sixth form or an apprenticeship."

Firstly, the comma after "discipline" is ungrammatical, secondly, I do not have any children.
"Modern schools for all" Clearly whoever wrote this has never been to Hyndburn, where a some schools are still housed in premises that were constructed before World War One.
"Strong Discipline", this from a party which has legislated to ban corporal punishment in schools and presides over an education system that is seeing teachers leave the profession in droves because they cannot cope with the levels of ill-dicipline and classsroom violence, is a bit rich to say the least.
"training, sixth-form or apprenticeship" A cynic would say that raising the school leaving age in this way places an unfair burden on an already groaning system and is merely an underhanded, but socially acceptable, way of massaging the youth unemployment figures. As an employer, I will be considering taking on an apprentice in a year or so. The financial incentives the government offer, commonly known as a bribe, are certainly tempting but must be weighed against the costs in time, patience and waste of having to re-educate any prospective candidate.

On the other side of the sheet, the New Labour candidate, Greg Pope, is given the space to observe that "this election isn't just about policies, it's also about values and I wanted to share with you the values of what kind of MP I want to be".

I find this a bit odd, considering that he has been in the job for the last eight years. You would imagine that he would have already figured out the "values of what kind of MP I want to be", or am I misreading this and he is announcing something of a damascene conversion to reality?

He then goes on somewhat confusingly, in another bulleted list, to describe some of his beliefs rather than his values.

"Every MP should know that you should be true to yourself, not a Party line". While confusing tenses might be acceptable in the middle of a heated exchange on a message board, from a Bachelor of Arts with an honours degree who is seeking re-election as a Member of Parliament it must inspire some cause for concern.

And does he seriously expect us to believe that voting against the government a mere 35 times out of a total of over 800 possible occaisions in the last Parliament is a good example of someone who does not follow the "Party line"?

The rest of the drivel on Greg's side of the page could be picked apart just as easily,if I had the time but, to be honest, I can't be bothered.!

As I said above, I wish that they had not bothered sending it. Another one for filing in the white sack I think.

I can hardly wait for the Conservative Election Leaflet