Friday 10th October

I should have been heading to Walton yesterday, partly to vote in the Clacton bi-election, but today I am heading North to see my son and his family.  Not that my vote for Labour would make much difference; this is a battle between Douglas Carswell, who until a month ago was a Tory and is now UKIP, and the new Tory candidate Giles Watling.  Not that Clacton is a typical Tory seat, quite the opposite in many ways.  There are a few outlying villages with pretty bungalows which would be natural Tory territory.  There is also a huge pool of unemployed or lowly paid in Clacton and Jaywick which should be Labour.  However these are people who rarely vote as they see Labour making no real difference to their lives – and maybe they are right.

However what UKIP has done and very successfully too, is to inspire politically unaware people who maybe have barely thought about politics before that they can indeed make a difference.  Unfortunately UKIP are not the answer.  They are simply the unbridled right-wing of the Tory party.  And if you think that the Tories are bad, just wait till this lot gets in.  And get in they may well do, undoubtedly as a minor party making up a coalition with the Tories.   Their message is simple and clever.  Get out of Europe and kick out the immigrants.  And that is a coded message to all the closet racists – “We don’t like black and brown people, or those speaking Polish as a first language etc.”

A nod and a wink to a blind horse, because the majority of people they are appealing to are politically unaware.  In fact the vast majority of the population is politically unaware; most vote the way their family or community has always done.  And maybe that old dumb loyalty is breaking down.  Unfortunately I don’t think things will change.  People will still be influenced by Press Headlines and will not stop and listen and think about what they really want from our politicians.  Oh, and the politicians too have to step up and stop talking in sound-bites.  Too late I am afraid for that.