Cannot believe they are at it again.
Charles Kennedy has put out another press release saying they will have free personal care when they in power. They will never be in power at Westminster but they are in Kingston.
What do they do here? - introduce 1000% increases in charges and means test. They not only now say one thing on one door step and another on the next door step but they even allow their Leader to make claims they know they have already betrayed.
4 comments:
I've been reading your diary for a while now Kevin, and some of the literature that occasioanlly pops through the door.
You say a vote for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote if we want to change the government.
That may (or may not)be true as far as it goes, but it is a bit simplistic. What on earth makes you think that if we don't like Blair and New Labour, a Tory government will strike us as a change for the better??
From what I can tell, people like me dislike New Labour precisely because it is almost a Tory Government.
Everyone knows that Gordon Brown is going to be the next Prime Minister and New Labour will fade away.
Labour haven't got a chance in Surbiton, so it makes sense to vote Lib Dem, They are the only anti government voice in parliament for people who disagree with Tony the Tory.
I think you'd better rethink your message.
Thanks for commenting.
I am quite happy with the message. Clearly if you were thinking whether to vote Lib Dem or Labour then you are not going to like the message.
If you wish to change the Government then voting Lib Dem is an absolute waste of time because the Lib Dems will never move beyond being the minority party in politics. Their policies are disastrous and they only get away with it because the vast majority of the population don't even bother wasting their time examining them. Yes, they may have been the only party opposed to war but that was because they wanted to give the UN more time. We will never know what they would have done had we done so and still Iraq flouted the international communities will!
Further to that it is quite clear that were the Conservatives to get very close to winning at the next General election the Lib Dems would jump into bed and support Labour like a shot. They would probably get a few fringe Cabinet posts but we would still have the high tax and high spend agenda of Labour.
As for the assertion that Blair is a Tory then you need only look at his Government's record that whilst that may be true of the man it is not true of his colleagues, policies or party. Look at the massive amounts of tax being pumped into public services to no effect. Yes, he has not raised income tax but he has savaged Council Tax payers. Whilst the Lib Dems whitter on about changing the system they never seem to argue that the real problem is that we are taxed too much.
So, the message is fine. A lib Dem in Parliament has no power and no influence excpet when they are lackies of the Labour party. If you want to get rid of labour and their policies then you must vote Conservative.
Couple that with the fact that I am a born, bred and love this Borough and have sent my children to schools in this Borough and have been a Councillor for Kingston for six years and I think then the people of Kingston & Surbiton can make their own minds up who is best placed to understand them and be their representative.
OK.
I take the point about you being local. And that is a very very good thing. You've done good things on the council too. And all that is much more likely to make us vote for you.
Yet it seems that your tactical message, boiled down, is vote tory if you want a Tory government, and any other vote is a vote for a continued Labour government.
In short a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for Labour.
Surely that is the message the Lib Dems want too. They squeeze the Labour vote saying they are the only ones to keep out the Tory.
I'd like to vote for a real local like you, but a general election isn't the same as a local council election. Left wing Tactical voting seems entrenched round here and with you reinforcing that logic with your message, what I fear is that a vote for you would actually be the wasted vote.
You make some very fair comments and they will make me think through what you say. However I offer the following prognosis:
There is no Labour vote to squeeze - it has been squeezed. In fact at the elections in June some of the Labour vote clearly started voting Labour again!
In 1992 the Conservatives in Kingston held ths seat with a notional majority of 15,164. I say notional because that figure was a recalculation of the real result based on the new boundaries introduced in 1997.
In 1992 the entire left wing vote (Labour + Lib Dem) amounted to about 25,000 and was still 5,000 behind the Conservatives.
So, this seat has swung from a 15,000 Con majority to a 15,000 Lib Dem one. However it cannot have been done on left wing votes alone and there are Conservatives out there that I need to reconnect to. Conservatives who could not bring themselves to vote Conservative for whatever reason (fed up! Candidate! etc etc). It is also very clear that the fall in turnout was almost entirely due to Conservatives who could not bring themselves to turn out and support us.
So there it is. The right message appealing to the right people will make the swing back to the Conservatives unstoppable. For those 29,000 Conservatives who voted, even in the fairly unpopular year of 1992, both myself and the party need to provide the right message - that is where your comments come in. I believe anyone who thinks they can predict the outcome of this next election in Kingston & Surbiton is being foolish.
I will give your view some thought!
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