X MARKS THE SPOT

 

When I was a young man and I was facing my first general election I was in a quandary as to where I should put my cross.

My parents were both labour voters which was understandable as they both came from working class families and were born into a time when Labour was the only party that gave a damn what became of them.

I am of course referring to the socialist party which went under the name of Labour and not to be confused with “new Labour” which we have today who are of course the champagne socialists who don’t give a second thought to the working class as their power base is now firmly rooted with the middle class.

My parents would have rather stuck pins in their eyes than vote Tory.

The conservative party was the backbone of the establishment and the cement that held together what was then a class structured society.

Today they are trying to maintain a stance in the middle ground but are neither one thing nor the other.

The third party back in the early seventies were as now the wishy washy Liberals trying to be all things to all men and failing miserably by embracing both ends of any given argument before disappearing up their own orifices.

Their cure-all today is as it always has been higher taxes and their policy for reducing drug related crime appears to be by decriminalizing drugs.

So, my quandary was should I follow my parents lead and vote Labour, support the establishment by voting Tory or waste my vote and plump for the Liberals.

None of the parties really ticked enough boxes for me so in the end I decided to waste my vote by going for the Liberals; well I was young and foolish back then.

Today I’m still in a quandary because the big three still don’t tick enough boxes and all of them seem to spend more time shooting themselves in the foot than actually getting anything done.

They all claim health, education and crime are their top priorities, yet they never get sorted.

The greatest crime of all is that we are all paying our parliamentarians to further their own ambitions while cocking the country up on our behalf.