The question of how will I vote may be answered by the absence of a polling card and lack of clear info on actually where to vote – I found the polling station address eventually and it gives me an excuse to examine the architecture of the Connaught School for Girls first hand.
I’ve only had one discussion on which way to vote in these elections and it happened by chance in the Director’s Bar at West Ham FC stood right next to Mike Ashley, owner of Newcastle FC. It was with my mate Eddie De Oliveira who I suspect will vote for Ken. He challenged my belief that Ken wasn’t the automatic choice and fired off a “what’s he done wrong?” line. I spluttered for a bit in the way that a computer does when you press too many buttons. “What has he done right” would be a better question and one I still can’t answer.
But the simplest answer for Eddie may come this Saturday when/if Fulham lose to Birmingham (I hope they win incidently) after their stirring fightback against Man City – because should they fail now they will have offered their supporters hope then robbed them of it – that it what Ken has done wrong above all else. Above the crime of making London a developer’s paradise (I shall never forgive him for surrendering Spitalfields to the City barons) – everybody who has ever fought against an unpopular planning decision endorsed by the mayor may well get their revenge tomorrow. Also above the fact that he has resolutely avoided the issue of housing until this election – until a credit crunch that has wounded his City pals – housing, this city’s biggest issue, an issue he built his early political career on -that alone is enough not to give him our vote.
That said, anyone who even considers for a blink of an eye voting for Boris Johnson should be expelled from the city and made to go and live in Stevenage or maybe Slough.
I could go on but I shall stop because when I go out tomorrow/today I want to vote For something not Against something.