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News and Comment December 2019

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11 December - It’s only banter, honest it is

When this election was first declared I honestly didn’t know who I would vote for, some days it was the Brexit Party candidate, other days it wasn’t.

I thought Mabel Ogundayo might make a worthy successor to Teresa Pearce although to actually vote for her was a bit of a stretch for someone who believes that Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would be the worst disaster to hit this country in my lifetime. I felt I would probably choose between Brexit and Conservative dependent on what I thought of each candidate on a personal basis.

Since then Mabel fell by the wayside to be replaced by Abena Oppong-Asare. Presumably her close connections to the GLA enables her to summon support from Sadiq Khan even though he knows so little about the area that Saturday’s video shows him mispronouncing Erith.

IzzardHowever Abena’s influence appears not to extend as far as Jeremy Corbyn but only to lesser comedians. Yesterday she brought Eddie Izzard to Abbey Wood and Erith. If I was still a floating voter that would certainly help me make up my mind.

What is more striking is the comparative lack of local political support. I’ve looked at Abena’s photos as they have appeared on Twitter and seen her backed by Joe Ferreira (Erith Councillor) in one and I think I saw Mabel Ogundayo (Thamesmead East Councillor) lurking in the background of another. There are probably some with Greenwich Councillors but I’m not sure I would recognise them.

I have not seen local Labour Councillors Daniel Francis, Sally Hinkley, Nicola Taylor, Esther Amaning or the former MP in any of the photos although former Councillor John Husband was seen out delivering leaflets.

Probably I have missed a few.

The wisdom of being disproportionately photographed alongside people of talent, as Channel 4 News might call them, even when canvassing the Northern Territories is debatable to my mind but presumably Abena knows exactly what she is doing. It is not very surprising. In 2018 the Thamesmead East ward was calling for an all black candidate list. Probably they regret not going ahead with that plan given events earlier this year.

My oscillation between The Brexit Party and The Conservatives did not make any real headway until very recently because I knew next to nothing about the two candidates. I still don’t. I know what Abena has achieved because various Labour people have told me but Joe Robertson has proved to be something of an enigma.

In 2015 Anna Firth made sure I knew everything I needed to know about her, Joe Robertson is not cast in her mould. Who is?

My decision has had to be based on something else and that something else has been Nigel Farage. I confess I had been going off him for several months past but his recent decisions have left me puzzled.

He says Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement, which I read but maybe didn’t always understand, was good enough to justify withdrawing his candidates from traditionally Conservative areas but it wasn’t good enough for withdrawal from Labour areas. That makes no sense whatever and I can only conclude that Farage is no longer thinking clearly.

If his intervention causes a hung Parliament he will have defeated his own lifetime’s work.

If Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister I can see only one benefit. A whole new generation of voters will learn the very hard way as I was forced to in the 1960s and 1970s that Labour governments always lead working people to disaster. I am probably sufficiently well off to survive financially but not so well off that I will be specially singled out by the Marxists for individual attention. Maybe the best place to be.

The average family will suffer to an extent they might not believe. I remember neighbours who burned their furniture to keep warm and sat on orange boxes and a government brought to its knees because a nationalised airline bought one solitary Boeing. Income tax at 98% for those who led successful lives. No one knows what poverty is any more and a bit of me will probably be thinking ‘Serves them right’ about working Labour voters in a year or two’s time.

PS. Councillor Philip Read thinks I am a Labour supporter paid to Troll his party. He’s not very bright is he?

 

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