Polls Apart

Stoke-on-Trent North

I didn't specifically request a postal vote for next month's General Election or the local election, but we must still be on the list from last time as two envelopes each, each containing two envelopes and a ballot paper, turned up last week and this morning, in a moment of resolution, I completed and posted mine.

In one respect, I can still claim to be a 'life-long Labour voter' as the only local election candidates came from the 'Big Three'.  Nationally, I've voted for the party whose policies most closely reflect my principles and concerns - and that isn't one who think chunky red mugs with slogans on them about controlling immigration are a good idea.

And I've lived up here long enough to wonder where they made those mugs too!

The irony is that as I was typing out the first draft of Severe Discomfort in the grey, wet summer of 2012, I had fond hopes of it helping Labour back into power in 2015 - but I hoped it wouldn't be the same Labour Party that gave us ESA and Local Housing Allowance.  Sadly, it's no better, promising to repeal the Bedroom Tax (because it's unpopular) but not the Benefit Cap (because it's popular), continuing the freeze on Child Benefit, treating 18 to 21 year-olds like children and indulging in an ugly bidding war with the Tories over which party is prepared to let EEA migrant workers starve for longest between jobs.

Southampton Itchen

But I'm not sure I would have been quite as idealistic about my (Green - you guessed?) General Election vote if I still lived in precariously marginal Southampton Itchen. Several of my books' characters would face just that dilemma.  Radical Martin would be torn between following his heart and canvassing for his TUSC candidate, and doing the pragmatic thing to keep the Tory out.  Green Sally Archer might lean towards a LibDem vote to be sure of keeping her Eastleigh constituency out of UKIP hands, and Hilary's hand might hover over her ballot paper again in similar fashion.  Down in Portsmouth North, Tricia can safely follow her conscience - red, redder or green - and will still get blue, one of millions who must feel their vote has no true value.  Still, pity the left-leaning voter pondering their ballot paper where the best way to stop a 'Kipper is to vote Tory - or is voting UKIP the best way to stop a Tory?  Lucky for my crew that they aren't staffing the Medway Welfare Rights Project!

As for Daphne, if she hasn't registered in Stoke Central she'll be moored in a marginal seat where her cross can make the greatest impact.  Sadly, the South Yorkshire Navigation doesn't reach as far as Sheffield Hallam and to get to Wirral West would take Lady Eowyn into risky tidal waters, but Daphne knows the way to Nuneaton or Milton Keynes, Crewe and Nantwich is close to home and Weaver Vale might be very much to her taste, so watch out for a floating voter!