6 April - The election campaign starts
The election campaigns have kicked off in earnest and for the first time
ever I have not decided who I should vote for, nationally or locally. I shall
have to pay special attention to what the candidates say. A communication received
yesterday is from Teresa Pearce, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Erith and
Thamesmead. In it she berates Bexley council and omits to mention national
issues at all. Nothing about Gordon Brown’s achievements, the economy, the EU,
immigration or any number of issues worrying people. Perhaps she has forgotten
that she is trying to become an MP not a local councillor. More likely she is
trying to confuse and deceive her electorate.
It’s easy to understand why a Labour politician would want to overlook the
present government’s record in office but criticising Bexley Conservatives for
raising council tax by 9% over four years smacks of desperation. The previous
Labour administration raised taxes on average by more than that amount every
single year they were in office and their leader told me personally that he was
proud of that record and wished he could spend even more.
Bexley’s Tory council has proved to be a grave disappointment in many ways and
has the whiff of corruption around it; surely a Labour candidate anxious to
avoid talking about the mess the country is in should be able to criticise
Conservative councillors for something more serious than doing four times better than her
own party did?