Taking Out The Trash

The numbers game

Just got my pack through from Wiltshire Council giving me candidate informaton for the unitary elections on June 4th. Some facts and figures for you:
6 candidates contesting my ward of Box & Colerne
3,835 electors
£791.75 is the amount I'm allowed to spend
4%: usual Green vote
11%: potential Green vote because of some Parliamentary difficulties you might have heard about (and I hope to get a lot more than that having knocked on hundreds of doors over the last month)
9am on June 5th: start of verification process of the ballot in Chippenham.
1pm (approx): actual start of count and of nail biting.
98: number of wards to declare and councillors to elect on that day.
10th: my wedding anniversary on the same day.
12: number of Green Party posters up in the village.
0: number of posters and canvassers from other parties I have seen out and about.

For a bit more see here.

Elections in Wiltshire

The list of who is standing where in Wiltshire's unitary election has been published.
There is a brief news item on it here but the breakdown by parties of the 354 candidates fighting for 98 seats is as follows:

BNP 12

Conservatives 98

Devizes Guardians 4

English Democrats – Putting England First 5

Green 8

Independents 30

Labour 55

Liberal Democrats 94

UKIP 48

Declaration of interest: I'm standing for the Green Party in Box & Colerne ward where there will be a BNP candidate on the ballot along with Con, Lib Dem Lab and Ukip.

Meanwhile, up a level of representative democracy and my MP, James Gray, is taking a fearful beating from . . . his own party.
Read about it here and then here and also here

President Bartlet declines to run

Martin Sheen, who played the fictional US President Bartlet in The West Wing, has told students at Oxford that he would never run for office.

Sheen, who is well known for his progressive politics, said the thought of spending all his time in meetings was too much.

"Acting is what I do for a living," he said. "Activism is what I do to stay alive."

Having properly launched my campaign to be elected as a councillor in Wiltshire I can empathise with the 'activism' bit. Getting out and talking on the doorstep to residents, addressing public meetings (as I did on Tuesday night) and debating with other people is invigorating. (You can find out more on my Facebook site).

You just hope to carry that enthusiasm through when the smoke has cleared and you find yourself in the council chamber debating the minutiae of policy.

Kerron Cross has nice post on this where he says: "I am simply hooked on the West Wing". The show is like a little cult where fans swap favourite liberal one-liners. Cross picks out a bit where Bartlet takes apart a bigoted talk show host.

However the clip below, for me, is another cracker. Bartlet is up against a folksy southern Republican who, watching it now, comes across as a male version of Sarah Palin. They accidentally meet in private just before a social engagement when this exchange takes place.

I took part in a debate with the other candidates in my ward on Tuesday night. The Lib Dem's had wanted me step aside because I would be splitting the anti-Tory vote. Yet I watched their prospective councillor struggle to even read off a cue card correctly. That was my "Boy, crime, I don't know" moment.

Gearing up for June 4

After months of preparation, starting to really gear up for the local authority elections on June 4.
Just had this Facebook site set up for my local campaign.