The Mayor and Voting and Stuff

I don't live in London, and I think Boris Johnson is funny on the telly, but I'm gutted that he's been voted in as mayor.

Politics runs in my family. My paternal grandfather was a labour MP who was on the Jarrow March, and I've several Mayors in my lineage, as well as trees planted and streets named.

I believe passionately, and (ask anyone) quite boringly, that everyone who can, should vote. I hound people, badger them to get out on voting day. These days more and more I hear the line - 'but they're all as bad as each other', 'I don't want any of them to win'. In which case I tell people to get out and make the effort and, at the very least, spectacularly spoil their paper instead.

I believe that an additional box should be added to every voting paper. It should come after all the candidates and be called - 'None of the Above'. In this way, people who want to protest can be counted like everyone else. There will always be people who spoil their papers by accident, but those who do it deliberately ought to be counted too, how else will people feel that their voice is being heard, and how else will the system be able to be changed to reflect the strength of feeling? But it will also place responsibility back with the individual. It is your right, it is your privilege, and it isn't irrelevant. Get out and vote.

So, back to my preferences. I can't help but vote Labour. I realise the party isn't what it once was. But apart from anything else I can't bear to vote Tory. And I can't help but feel that the Lib Dems are just a bit wet. It's not that I don't agree with some of their policies, and they've definitely had the best leaders (Paddy and Charles), but since they sacked Charles Kennedy, they've just got a whole load more boring in my book. But I think it goes beyond the rational. I think that with me it's probably a genetic thing. A bit like supporting a football team that repeatedly lets you down. You just keep on supporting with blind faith, knowing, hoping, that one day they'll pull round and deliver the goods for you, the long suffering believer.

The thing is that Red Ken is (in my book anyway) a proper politician. He stands for something, and it's a personal, passionate thing with him. It's taken him into difficult places, it's alienated him from the party and vice versa, but he's stayed firm and drawn a line and refused to cross it. And whether I agree with the things he's done (bendy buses et al) or not, I admire and respect him. Boris is a character as well, but I think he's been put up by the Tories as a 'celebrity' candidate, someone people might vote for because he's been on the telly, and as such, someone who might topple Ken.

Well, now he has, and Ken's leaving speech was a dignified and inspiring thing. I hope it made more than a few of the idiot Boris voters think that they might just have made a terrible mistake. So now we wait, we wait to see what BJ will do to the London that Ken has made great. Enjoy, BJ voters, this is all your fault...!