Monday 5 May 2014

When The Candidates Come Knocking ...

This time last week, Labour's former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was telling her lefty mates why simply kicking UKIP was not going to work in their favour.
If I were a candidate, the last thing I would be doing is talking about or tweeting about Ukip. I would be out on the doorstep listening to those who think they are being ignored, responding with local facts and evidence and talking up Labour plans to ensure that the cost of living crisis is tackled and that everyone benefits from EU membership and economic growth. 
Ukip are growing their support by claiming to represent the disenfranchised – the last party to successfully do this was Labour. [...] we have the economic message and the local campaigning strength to re-engage those losing faith in politics and economics. I will do my bit by spending less time on Twitter and more time on the doorstep.
Seems a fair point. In short, she is saying that insulting UKIP and their supporters for objecting to career politicians is not a great way of encouraging potential UKIP voters to like Labour. Instead, says Jacqui, activists should get out and tell the public all about the wonderful things Labour have planned for us.

Well, after yesterday, we know a little bit more about what they are offering when they knock on our door, don't we?

Banning alcohol sponsorship; telling supermarkets to make their products harder for us to find; taking the tasty ingredients out of food; raising the cost of booze; dictating what you can do in your own car; banishing Walker's crisp to the naughty step till after 9pm; bringing in plain packaging despite it tanking in Australia; forcing adults to be fit; and banning Frosties.

According to Labour MP Chuka Umunna, all the above will be "empowering people", not ordering us about, absolutely not ... and this from someone said to be leading a "revolt" against the proposals!

As Frank Davis muses, one can only assume that the objections are because these ideas are not hideous enough.
But I'm puzzled that the Labour party is revolting against Red Ed’s fascist health plans. I can only suppose that the bastards actually want the health plans to be much more draconian than Ed is proposing, perhaps with compulsory P.E. for the entire UK population, with everyone assembling daily under barked loudspeaker instructions on village greens and town squares to perform a regime of press-ups and knee-bends and marathon runs specifically designed to kill off unfit smokers and drinkers and fat people (who oughtn't to be alive anyway). 
I'm sure they will want something along those lines. Or maybe something even worse.
Comments on all media platforms yesterday - whether they be right, left or centre - have been significantly opposed to this kind of wholesale nannying, perhaps why Labour are trying to back-track a tad.

Not that much though. Umunna can only say that "a lot" of the Mail's story is "garbage", despite at least half of it already being demanded by MPs in Westminster if you even only skim debates held there recently. Meanwhile their spin doctors are claiming that this is "not official policy" despite the Mail publishing the Labour document in its entirety, and the proposals looking very much like a milder finished article after the even more insane suggestions had been rejected.

So this is what Labour MPs - as Jacqui Smith suggests they should do - will be taking to doorsteps up and down the country prior to May 2015, is it? This is how their politicians are going to woo an electorate which despises them and is deserting the main parties in droves? By saying that a vote for Labour is a vote to be infantilised and have your life dictated to by members of the country's most untrustworthy and despised profession?

Leg Iron describes it perfectly (in the middle of last night, as is his wont) when he points out that if Labour believe this is going to be popular, they've been listening to the wrong people.
All the politicians hear these days are the whining of the lobbyists. “There is massive public support” for smoking bans, plain packs, booze control, diet control, and all the rest and it is all entirely fabricated. As the swing to UKIP – despite the constant portrayal of that party in the press as being composed of people almost as insane as those in Wastemonster now – should demonstrate to a politician with a brain. Even if it’s in a jar on his desk with ‘For emergency use only’ stencilled on it. 
That’s all they hear since they stopped listening to real people. “There is massive public support for this new measure we haven’t yet told anyone about. Look how many signatures we have written, um, collected.” Now the effects are filtering through. Moribund must genuinely believe that turning the country into a less appealing version of North Korea is what the public want. Either that, or he really does not want to win the next election.
We're a long way from that May 2010 post-election optimism in the back garden of Number 10, aren't we? You know, when Clegg was talking about "rolling back our liberties" and Cameron was hinting at a new era of liberalism now the demons of Labour had been vanquished.

If anything, things have got a lot worse and each of the three main parties are engaged in a game of one-upmanship with the winner being he who can boss us around the most; where the ingenious plan to stem the flood of voters to UKIP by insulting them has failed; and where the remedy is now to turn up on our doorstep and tell us that they're sorry they haven't butt-fucked us enough but they promise to try harder if we can just give them another chance.

Perhaps Labour's proposed manifesto should be welcomed, though, especially if all parties follow Jacqui Smith's sage advice to promote their message to us personally. Because most of us will be seeing candidates of all parties knocking on our doors in the run up to May 22nd and, since they're just not getting it, we should be asking them - not just Labour, but Tories, Lib Dems, Greens and yes, UKIP too - a simple question.

Will you leave us alone?

Personally, I shall also have props behind the door as exhibits. A pack of Winston Blue, a bottle of cheap plonk, an e-cig, a packet of crisps, a can of Red Bull and, of course, a fucking chocolate orange. And I shall ask them why they think they have any right whatsoever to interfere in our choice to purchase and consume any of them.

If the answer is "blah blah, obesity crisis, blah blah, binge-drinking epidemic, blah blah, pocket money prices, blah blah, for the children, blah blah", tell them you won't even consider voting for them and expand at great length. We are in a very rare period in the electoral cycle where they come begging us for something, so make sure you use it. It's the only possible way - and I know that even that is a long shot - that these people will learn to listen to us instead of the cocktrumpets they pay out of our taxes to lobby them.


13 comments:

DaveAtherton20 said...

Bloody well written DP, top marks.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Ta. Copyright free should Breitbart wish to re-post it (may require sub-editing for a, ahem, family audience) ;)

Sam Duncan said...

The phrase “second-longest suicide note in history” springs to mind. Except that it'll probably end up longer than their '82 manifesto by the time it's finished.

ScottWichall said...

Top marks from me as well!

Kath Gillon said...

I have been waiting with baited breath for the candidates to come a knocking so I can "discuss" my concerns with them. As this is my first election since moving to the Midlands, I am unsure how it works here. But back in my home town they would have started canvassing about 6 weeks ago with leaflets, poster campaigns and standing in the high street chatting to locals. So far here with less than 3 weeks to go we have had one moth eaten pamphlet from Labour. Funny enough none of the utter tripe they have been syphoning into the press in recent days was in it. Clearly apathy is rife round here and no one is taking this thing seriously, apparently this area is a Labour strong hold. This worries me greatly however if the other parties don't even try how do they expect to make any change. I know the way this works my parents do it as politicians. The agents, candidates and canvassing teams tend to focus on the areas they know they can win, okay but to not even send out any literature seems bizarre to me. I don't even know who my candidates are!
Currently the way Labour are going , they have put themselves in the toilet now they just need to flush, because I have never head such a load of communist shit in my entire life.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Perhaps they've realised we all hate them for one reason or another these days and are getting nervous about doorstepping. ;)

Dioclese said...

Well, I was going to say that Miliband is an arsehole - but then arseholes are useful...

nisakiman said...

I have to say that when I perused the putative Labour manifesto, my immediate thoughts were that it was an object lesson in how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

As Leg Iron so sagaciously points out, their problem is that they listen only to fanatical lobbyists, and because they live in an otherworldly bubble, they actually believe it when they are told that more bans is what the public wants.

Politicians these days really are living in a parallel universe. It's been said before, and I do agree, that a prerequisite for becoming a politician should be at least ten years actually working for a living in the real world, and not in politics but in commerce.

A reader said...

Yeah, well said, Dick. I especially liked the phrase "cocktrumpet". Thanks for bringing a smile to a grey day.

JustMe said...

DP,


You must be fortunate to live in an area where the result isn't a forgone conclusion.


I never get the pleasure of telling them what I think, as they don't bother coming round, sometimes I might get an occasional leaflet (2 UKIP, 0 Others so far). If Ghenghis Khan was standing for Labour and his only promise was to excecute everyone over the age of 18, he'd still win by 15,000 such is the stupidity of the inhabitants of my city.


Give them hell on my behalf, thanks.

truckerlyn said...

So they should! Then again, as superior as they believe themselves to be, that is not excuse.

truckerlyn said...

I met an elderly gentleman yesterday I haven't seen for a while and clutched in his hand was his application to join UKIP. That was great to see as many of the older generation, like my mother, for instance, insist on remaining 'true' to the party they have always voted for, not matter that drvel they puke up at election time or throughout the years!


We had a brief discussion and both agreed that UKIP are most definitely not racist, they are, however what none of the other parties are, REALISTS.

truckerlyn said...

Furthermore, that gentleman also feels, as I do, that in recent decades our governments have totally sold down the river those who gave their lives for our Freedom and Democracy and that all of the 3 main parties are shameful and not to be trusted with a tin of toffees nevermind the power they do have.