Along with an increasingly tiny proportion of the electorate, I'm off to cast my vote in the local elections today. I missed out four years ago because I was abroad, and because the deadline for signing up for a postal vote had passed 15 minutes before I was informed when that deadline was. Electoral irregularities in Tower Hamlets? Surely not.
Who'd want to live in one of the poorest boroughs in the country? Well, me for a start. But there are deep-seated problems here regarding poverty, community services and unemployment, so any local council has its work cut out trying to give the poorest residents a leg-up. The Liberals ran the borough back in the early 90s, while more recently Labour has had overall control. But this may not be the case by tomorrow morning. Come daybreak tomorrow the Respect Party may have wrested power via the ballot box, rather like their party's leader managed in the General Election last year. Yet again Tower Hamlets risks a major electoral upset, and I face living in a political experiment.
When George Galloway announced in his MP's acceptance speech that he planned to oust the 'corrupt' councillors of Tower Hamlets in the 2006 local elections, I was worried. It's one thing being represented by an ego in Parliament, but quite another having that ego responsible for sweeping your streets and educating your children. When George walked through the doors of the Celebrity Big Brother House I was even more worried, because surely this was perfect media publicity for a highly talented showman. But when feline George fell to his knees and lapped imaginary milk out of Rula Lenska's cupped hands I cheered, because his shame and the moral retribution of my local electorate would surely wreck his bid for power. Nothing could restart the Respect bandwagon, nothing short of John Prescott getting caught shagging his secretary and Charles Clarke screwing up on crime and immigration in a criminally negligent manner. Damn. Now I'm worried again.
I'm worried because, especially here in Tower Hamlets, ideology and scandal are getting in the way of rational decision-making. Our local elections probably won't be decided on local issues. The best party to run local social services has nothing to do with the Deputy Prime Minister's rampant libido. The best party to invest in local libraries has nothing to do with the number of escaped asylum seekers caught committing murder. The best party to boost household recycling capacity has nothing to do with the introduction of wasteful NHS bureaucratic management structures. And, Mr Galloway, it's all very well telling me that stopping the unjust war in Iraq will be one of your councillors' top priorities, but that's not going to get my bins emptied. There's a place for such well-justified concerns, but it's in a General Election, not these local polls. One Respect MP can't do much damage in Parliament, but one Respect council running all my local services could be very different indeed. Wish me luck down at the polling booth.
Vote040506: May Poll
