May 1, 2008
London Votes!
The day has finally arrived. After months of campaigning, it's finally your turn to have your say and elect a London Mayor for the next 4 years. And not only that, as was highlighted yesterday, there are some other things you need to make your mind up about too.
Hopefully, you've had a lovely helpful leaflet through your door to steer you through the polling minefield but if not, here are the basics:
1. Find your polling station by texting POLL to 64118 or ring your local council. Polling stations opened at 7 this morning and close at 10pm tonight. You don't need your polling card with you but it will probably speed things up if you remember to take it along.
2. Elect a London Mayor. This ballot paper is pink. You can vote for a first and second choice candidate. It is not compulsory to select a second choice candidate.
3. Now for the London Assembly bit. Elect a Constituency London Assembly Member on the yellow ballot paper. Vote for one candidate.
4. Elect a London-wide Assembly Member on the peach ballot paper. Again, vote for one candidate.
And that's your democratic duty done and dusted.
It's your choice. Just don't forget to go and do it!
All the info is at www.londonelects.org.
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I was most perturbed this morning, upon arriving at my local polling station, to find a peculiar man standing outside wearing a big Tory Blue ribbon. He asked me my poll card number and wrote it down on a piece of paper. No idea if he was an official or just some random weirdo.
When queried about why he was allowed to pitch for Boris literally outside the doors of the station, he demurred and claimed that other candidates'' supporters were late.
Ominous. I feel the clammy hands of Jeb Bush all over this. Voter disfranchisement? You heard it here first.
Are they allowed to ask people's poll numbers? Sounds very dodgy indeed.
Outside my polling station was a Left List-er. He seemed to be studiously avoiding giving his leaflets to anyone on their way to work, though...
They can ask but you don't have to tell them. Aren't they're just trying to keep track of local turnout?
The practice is called telling. This is the way the parties determine if their stalwart voters have turned out or not - if they haven't it is not unusual in the shires for the party to drive round and knock people up to vote.
It is of course up to you if you give them your polling card number, but the practice is pretty harmless.
Hmm, well, okay, I guess it is all above board... this guy still gave me the heebie-jeebies. I think it was the size of his giant blue Tory rosette that disturbed me.
Today, was my first time voting in London. It was easy once I got comfortable with knowing I had to vote for 2 people for mayor - it almost felt "hanging chad" like, but whatever. I too encountered the guys at the front door, but I had no idea who they were and I couldn't really tell what kind of ribbons they were wearing. They only asked me for the polling number, which was ok with me.
So, GO KEN!!!! Please, people, we can't have a posh boob on this side of the Atlantic too.
This was the first year that there were no tellers outside my local polling station. I found this rather disappointing, as I'd been screwing up my courage all morning to tell them to sod off and leave me alone.
Bizarre: My quip against Ken seems to have been removed. All I said was lovely as he is, he chose to stand as the Labour candidate. He cant, thereafter, claim to be 'independent'. Its great to give the Labour careerist elite a good kicking today because they have totally and utterly failed to represent the interests of ordinary Londoners - people who dont want to pay 8x the average salary for a roof over their head - who dont want an illegal war in Iraq - who dont want private companies making a killing from investment in LU. People who expect more from a Labour govt - not a govt that grovels to the City - Bush and the Murdoch press.