Time To Watch The Wallet

Two hundred plus days to go before the General Election and battle is joined.  In go the bombers hitting the terrorists with million pound bombs released by £33,000 an hour aircraft (see Richard North) funded by quantitative easing.  It makes for better headlines than repairing potholes.

We have long been started on the Health debate.  Labour are bitterly complaining that the Tories have not cleared up the many and various disasters they left behind in 2010.  Also, in other political shopping places the picking of pockets is well under way.

One especially rewarding lift is property which is certain to get the shoppers worried and moving, if only in all the wrong directions.  When I first took out a mortgage well over fifty years ago, taxation of property was a dreadful mess and it has not got any better.

At each and every party conference then and since, the speakers from the platforms have repeated every promise made since the late 19th Century on the subject and are adding a few more made possible by modern technology.

Ed Miliband has been accused of dropping certain issues from his speeches, or forgetting them, make your choice.  These are the difficult issues which are complicated and unluckily mean that there will have to be some losers.

During an election campaign the likely losers have got to be made to think they might be winners in spite of all the evidence.  On the other hand those who are destined to win have to be persuaded that if the other lot get in then they will lose.

At one time in the regular media, if not TV, it was possible for voters to find out more and make informed judgments.  This is no longer the case.  It is possible by careful use of the net.  But many do not have the time for this luxury, a good many are not on the net and for most, notably the young, there are more interesting things to look at.

I spend time looking at Disused Railway Stations rather than in depth analyses of major issues.  At least it tells me that building railways is often a good way to lose vast amounts of money and go broke, or to saddle the taxpayer with new major burdens.

Oh, a break for tea and something new.  Mark Reckless, Conservative M.P. for Rochester and Strood, has turned up at the Doncaster Races to declare his money is on UKIP, having their conference there this week.  He has abandoned the Conservatives which will cause a terrible fuss.

Perhaps he could not face a week in Birmingham at the Tory conference, more likely he has been counting his local votes.  Many years ago I recall a conference at the same venue in Doncaster when Shirley Williams was the star turn.

I ran a book on how often she would either repeat herself or muddle her metaphors and cleaned up.  It was a much better bet than the horses usually found there.  These days her sort of wide eyed, if contrived, innocence is not to be found.

At the moment all bets are off for May 2015, there is too much going on, too little sense and no clear direction from any of them.  This is looking grim if another coalition in prospect and perhaps crippled by failures to decide or understand.

Then it will 2020 and time to check your pockets again.