I'm holding out for a new party to support
IS the high drama and turmoil at the Houses of Parliament leading to any real change that the British public deserve so much?
There is just a short sprint left to June 4 when voters will have the option to express their views on these recent expenses carbuncles at Westminster. However, the real problems concerning the way the two main political parties are bank rolled still remain.
One only has to look around the countryside to see the sea of Conservative posters springing up with the message Vote for Change, presumably with an army of fox-hunting supporters out to help swing this change to the past.
This comes as reports in the Daily Telegraph reveal several members of the shadow cabinet are using their office expenses to pay more than £150,000 to their local party associations out of taxpayers' money.
The only change I can identify is the way David Cameron has transformed himself into the Tony Blair of the Conservative Party.
But in this poster war the only poster challenge seems to come from the UKIP, taking advantage of the gathering mistrust of the ever-growing European Union.
Funding for the Lib Dems and Labour must be at an all-time low and hardly the ideal situation in a modern democracy where people are urgently looking for real change and not simply the ceremonial changing of the guard at Westminster.
It will be interesting to see if this vast spending by the Conservative Party partly supported by the taxpayer results in an increase in seats won.
I will be looking for new parties and new people to vote for, if only to start the thought process of moving away from the failed parties we were once forced to support.
Graham Forsyth
Fairway Rise, Chard
(by email)
Comments
by Mr A T Dudgeon, 106 Farm Hill, Exwick, Exeter, EX4 2LJ
Thursday, May 28 2009, 8:44AM
“The trouble is that all the main parties have been proved to be corrupt. Lord Tebbit has the right idea in advising people to protest against this corruption by voting for one of the smaller parties in the forthcoming European and Council Elections, but please don¿t waste your protest vote! If you want the lights to go out (literally) in the UK and huge expensive and inefficient wind farms covering the landscape, and the curtailment of the freedom of movement that car ownership brings, by all means vote Green. If you want race riots and a large section of decent UK citizens disenfranchised (because they are deemed to be of the wrong colour or origin), then by all means vote BNP. However, if you want a real change and an end to the gravy train both in the UK and EU, there is only one alternative. UKIP has had a couple of ¿bad apples¿ amongst their MEPs, but dealt with them promptly and efficiently a long time ago, without waiting for an expose in the Daily Telegraph or trying to cover it up for years. All the main parties, despite the current euro sceptic pre-election noises emanating from the Conservatives, fail to address the main problem, which is that our MPs and Councillors are more or less irrelevant, since 80% of our laws are now made in Brussels, and the expenses scandal amongst MEPs there remains hidden. Our Government (and the current opposition) is therefore powerless to actually change anything, hence post office closures, car plant closures, an environmentally disastrous fishing policy, a ludicrously expensive agricultural policy and a non existing immigration policy etc etc. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on. By all means, let¿s clear out the small rotten barrel first, but don¿t forget that it is currently floating in a much bigger and even more rotten barrel, which is currently costing us £40,000,000 per day! At least read UKIPs manifesto, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the common sense and honesty of their policies.”