I'll bet that none of you were expecting that now, were you? The General Election will be held on May 6th – the same day as the local elections, that many of us have been working towards for some time now. It was always the obvious choice, I'm sure in no small part due to the fact that many constituencies would not be able to afford to run two election campaigns, had the general and local elections been held separately.
There can be no doubt that it is going to be four weeks of hard work and stress but what we must do, in addition to working to return a Labour government for an historic fourth term, is to work towards increasing the dignity and respect that parliament should have been maintaining all along.
Too much damage has been done by a few dishonest and greedy politicians. This has further disengaged the electorate and made the cry of “They're all the same” even more commonplace. In some ways I understand this impression, it was politicians of both the Labour and Conservative parties who were held up as the worst offenders and it would be easy – if lazy – politics to tar all MPs and PPCs with the same brush and dismiss them as unfit for public office, when that is clearly not the case. This is a priority and should be a cross-party aim. There are many good people out there, who are entering politics with exactly the experience and knowledge that is needed, as well as having the very noble motive of trying to make people's lives better.
In the Labour party, what we have to focus on is the simple truth that, Labour has policies that will benefit the majority of the population. As much as the Tories are pleading their case as a changed party, every now and again, someone like Nicholas Winterton, Daniel Hannan or Chris Grayling will pop up and give us an insight into what is really said behind closed Tory doors. Cameron's close control manages to keep up the facade that he wants us all to believe but as soon as he looses the reins a little, someone says something he regrets.
This was all too clear today, when David Cameron stood, alone amongst a throng of cherry-picked Conservative supporters, to announce the start of the Tory campaign – right outside Ken Livingstone's old GLC headquarters, County Hall. Cameron stood, the sole figure on a small platform, the centre of attention and leaving no doubt about the pivotal point of the modern Tory party and the only thing they have to base a campaign on.
One only has to look at how Osborne has been noticeably absent recently, Grayling is being swept under the living room rug and hardly any other Tories ever appear alongside Dave because of the damage they keep doing to him and the image he works hard to portray. Dave's clean up of the Tories has consisted of dusting around the ornaments and shoving everything he couldn't sort out quickly, under the sofa.
Shortly after Cameron's performance, Gordon Brown appeared outside Number 10, flanked by his Cabinet. “I am not a team of one, I am one of a team.” he said. The contrast could not be clearer.
Cameron is flying solo, no wing-man and no one to watch his back. His verbosity continues apace and his wife remains his only companion on the campaign trail. He stands for everything he thinks we will fall for and that changes daily - exactly as his slogan promises.
Originally posted at www.houseoftwits.co.uk
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