Horrified to find that my local polling station had no booths, just tables with notice boards alongside that left me to cast my vote in full view of the tellers who thought I was being stupid and awkward and said it wasn't their fault when I complained about lack of privacy. Hello? Illegal.
We called the Electoral the Electoral Commission to get them to address the situation.
So, a long day. Stopping off home for dinner and then I'm out to watch the count.
Photography blog tomorrow will be Spring, Ask the Experts, and Photos as Usual. See you there. Ad astra per aspera
Wales is a different country but Labour are gonna get creamed in England. Brown can say what he likes, the 10p thing wasn't an isolated aberration, but has been taken by a lot of people to be emblemetic of his indifference to anybody but the super-rich. Amazingly people will protest by voting Tory, a party that is even worse. keep to the Fen Causeway
The Lib dem candidate managed to get bonus points by stopping to give me a lift towards home just as it started to hail. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
One of my friends said it was great cos he wasn't allowed to buy a round for an entire month. Giving you a lift is surely a favour in kind....you've been bought.
I like the plaid question. keep to the Fen Causeway
just before an election where there was a combined Plaid/green candidate standing for MP we had our regular visit from the council planning department to tell us to move the lived in vehicles. During the conversation the council official asked if we were voting. having said yes he asked whether it was Plaid/green we would be voting for, having said yes, he said that if we went round and put a load of Plaid posters up, then he'd leave us alone for six months which was as long as he could put off an inspction without being obvious. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I think the campaign has done me good, whether we win or lose. I've seen all areas of my community, how people live, the issues they are facing. It's reaffirmed to me how incredibly selfish that the wealthier sections of the ward are.
It's reminded me of some of the most basic things that I spend my job fighting over - things like literacy, standard of living, poverty, racism, equality - but often never 'see' it for myself and recently I have.
When I was leafletting today a man came out of his house and said to me "who's the coloured man?" (I realised he meant our candidate) I told him the name. Then he showed me the leaflet I'd put through the door and asked me to show him where the name was on there because he wanted to vote for us. He couldn't read. He wanted to cast his vote but couldn't read to do so.
How do you exercise your democratic rights properly without basic literacy? Here in Wales we have a very pro trade union Government, very pro social justice, investing a lot of money in our basic literacy and numeracy courses and other courses for upskilling workers and we are lucky to have that. Under a tory Government that funding would no doubt be heavily if not completely cut. I do often think that if people think things are bad under Labour they'll get a horrible shock if the Tories make it back in. Ad astra per aspera
How do you exercise your democratic rights properly without basic literacy? Here in Wales we have a very pro trade union Government, very pro social justice, investing a lot of money in our basic literacy and numeracy courses and other courses for upskilling workers and we are lucky to have that. Under a tory Government that funding would no doubt be heavily if not completely cut. I do often think that if people think things are bad under Labour they'll get a horrible shock if the Tories make it back in.
If only we had a labour party in Westminster that understood its obligations so clearly. keep to the Fen Causeway
In Jordan, the parliamentary ballots ALL seem to require that the voters write in the name of the candidate, there are no boxes to check, or at least there weren't in 2003. I was puzzled by this and asked my colleague, "What about people who can't write?" And she looked at me like I'd lost my mind: "Nobody can't write." Which is not actually true (Jordan's overall adult literacy rate is around 90 percent) but probably is fairly close to true in the urban areas and among the younger parts of the population.
I saw this and thought of you:
Face to Face | i love typography, the typography blog
Nadine Chahine is an incredibly talented Lebanese type designer with a very special interest in Arabic typography. She taught Arabic type design as a visiting lecturer at the American University in Dubai and then joined Linotype, Germany, where she is now in charge of Sales Marketing and Arabic-related projects. As of September 2007 she is also a PhD candidate and her topic is legibility studies for the Arabic script.
Even with high literacy, are there not a lot of spoils where ballots are hand written? Ad astra per aspera
I do often think that if people think things are bad under Labour they'll get a horrible shock if the Tories make it back in.
Elections in the UK are lost, not won. They're popularity contests, not policy contests.
I'm not sure how many people have any sense of policy at all. Voting seems to be punitive, which makes it easy to manipulate results with scare stories and resentment journalism.
Oddly enough it's not usually explained that voting for greasy wobble-chinned public school crooks isn't going to do working people any favours.
It doesn't help that both of the main parties are now run by greasy wobble-chinned public school crooks. I'd guess that only confuses people.
Sadly, my area is not having an election, but I'm interested in what will happen in Sheffield, West Lindsey, and even Grimsby. It would be weird if that became a Conservative controlled town. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
With 70 key wards now declared, it continues to look as though it will be a relatively good night for the Tories, and a bad night for the Lib Dems, while Labour can look forward to at best doing much as it did in 2004 and 2007.
Anyways, Conservatives have gained west Lindsey, which is no big surprise, to be honest, given that their MP is Edward Leigh, who is a fully paid up member of that party with a big majority. Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
Maybe Boz will win in London after all. Criky! As he might say... Member of the Anti-Fabulousness League since 1987.
