Confused Local Election Stuff

Some local blogs and newsletters have been saying strange things.

Labour Cllr Chris Maskell tells us we are getting rid of some unloved fences and lamposts on the Oxford Road. He doesn't mention that they were installed under Labour administration and cost millions, what a huge waste of money. He manages not to thank the Tory/LibDem coalition for removing them.

A few days before he praises the council for resurfacing some roads, again not mentioning thats its the Tory/LibDem coalition that have done it, not Labour though they were in charge for many years.

He praises some anti Tesco action, not mentioning that he and his colleagues fully supported the new Tescos in Reading, leading to local shops closing down. Its only the Greens that have consistently opposed these giant supermarkets and supported smaller shops.

But dont think this is the only person who is confused.

Lib Dem Cllr Gareth Epps joins the growing criticism of Andrew Landsleys bill, though he is part of the coalition that allows it it exist.

Ex LibDem Cllr Warren Swaine lists how many local candidates each party is fielding.

(Labour) have 15 candidates and a piss-poor 4 of them actually live in the ward where they are standing. The Tories in fact have 6 candidates who live in their ward. Greens 7, Lib Dems 8. The Common Sense party are only fielding 6 candidates, but only one of them lives in the ward they want to represent.

Quite a few local blogs cover this subject, not sure how relevant it is. I have seen no evidence that living in a ward makes a candidate superior, though I think they should have a connection. For example in the last General Election I was selected for Reading West when I still lived in the consituency, years later when we finally had the election I had moved. Of course I could have stood down but there seemed to be no point, I still had many connections to the area and dont live that far away.

He mentiones by name 'Chris Maskell (Battle) lives in Norcot', to be fair they moved the boundary when he used to live in the ward, he still lives close to it. There are other reasons to vote (or not) for someone.

Its nice of Warren to mention the Greens, many others simply ignore the us, presumably they are scared.

LidDem Cllr Glenn Goodall mentions the 'botched Shinfield Road fiasco…', not mentioning that is was done under the LD/Tory coalition, though it was planned by Labour. I was surprised the Tory transport lead Cllr Richard Willis went ahead with it as the Tories campaigned heavily againsed trafffic lights schemes like this prefering mini roundabouts, hey ho.

He claims the LibDems have produced fairer taxes, made britain Greener and cleaned up politics. I'm still waiting for a single one of these things to happen.

Is this any clearer now? I doubt it. At election time the parties with money produce mountains of material, most of it rather fancilful to say the least. I prefer to stand on my record of year round campaigning. And at the moment I don't have the time or money to do much, except for this blog.


Image from here

UPDATE:
Local Tory current Cllr and still hopeful in Park ward Wazir Husseain writes about Green Bins. 'Should 77% of residents pay for a service they can’t and/or don’t use?' Its seems a clever idea, copied from Cameron; want to cut services, present it as though its for the benefir of the poorest. Unfortunately its hypocrisy, all their other policies have the poor subsidising the rich. With education, society benefits from having more graduates. In the case of Green bins, it costs less to process this than it would if residents were to chuck it in the landfill bins. So its a bad policy in economic terms as well as in Green terms, where eco behavior should be encouraged for the benefit of all.