What has it come to when one of one's favourite Grauniad columnists rings one up with a recorded message.
Sorry John, but I can't make it to Battersea this weekend - in the immortal words of Elvis Costello, "I Don't Want To Go To South Chelsea..." With my legs, I can't even make it to Streatham Hill...
Yeah, yeah, I've got a blog coming up about 'campaigning', and another about 'the day'. I was going to talk about issues, but then I decided, it's not really about issues. Well, it should be, but the campaign shouldn't be about issues, really. I mean, it's been four years since the last election, and since then the Government has governed and the various Oppositions have Opposed, variously.
What was that you said - you hadn't noticed...
When it comes down to it, you either vote for a broad philosophy, or you have a basket of issues on which you rank the parties, and pick the best fit.
Charlie Kennedy's having laugh, right about Iraq. Each one of the three main parties (sorry Scots and Welsh...) were divided on Iraq. Each party had people voting one way or th'other, and resignations blah-de-blah.
The Labour Party was in Governemnt and chose to go into Iraq. The Tory leadership was in support of this, and would surely have done the same. The Lib Dems opposed right up to the time the war started and then started to get all mealy-mouthed and tabloid about 'supporting our boys', without actually giving any indication of having any sort of exit strategy.
Do you honestly think that anything would have been different regardless of who was in power? And I do not honestly think that if Condoleeeeeezza decides to invade Syria or Iran that any British government, regardless of colour, is going to be quite so enthusiastic to support that.
I've had three search request for 'candidate's name Iraq'. Two are acquaintances of mine, and the third is a former Tory Chancellor and Home Secretary. Oh, I thought, people are taking notice of Kennedy. Then I thought - yeah, three people have come here via Google. I would have been far more impressed if I had had thousands and thousands of search requests from the voters of Burnley, Twickenham and Rushcliffe.
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