Editor's Blog: Election has turned into Groundhog Day
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The national press and broadcasters had a
great election story twist yesterday. Apparently the three main
parties were into their final 72 hours of campaigning. Yes, despite
the fact that the beeb, ITV, Sky and ‘Fleet Street’ have
legions of journalists working on this, the best line they
could come up with was what day of the week it was. Hardly Pulitzer
stuff, is it? But since the final TV debate and the car crash drama
of Bigotgate the campaign has a kind of Groundhog Day about it with
reporters having to resort to simply counting down the clock.
Maidstone has been conspicuous in its absence
of A-list politicians coming to meet party supporters in the guise
of ‘ordinary people’ during the campaign – apart from the odd foray
into Aylesford. I’m surprised that David Cameron hasn’t been
dispatched to nail Maidstone and the Weald for Helen Grant. It
would be a major shock if the Tories didn’t hold the seat but they
do to be wary of a major Lib Dem inroad into Ann Widdecombe’s
15,000 majority. Then Nick Clegg has surprisingly not travelled
down to give his candidate Peter Carroll an important personal
boost. But hey, there are still, wait for it, 48 hours of
campaigning to go!
Schools secretary, and member of Gordon
Brown’s inner sanctum, Ed Balls was in Medway yesterday and made an
interesting statement about the party’s prospects in Kent. Opinion
polls, the bookies and our own political sage Paul Francis predict
a Tory wipe-out in the county. Of course the agreed Labour
‘message’ would be to insist they can hold all seven of their seats
but Balls suggested that the best they can hope for is winning
three: Gillingham, Chatham and Aylesford and Dover. He overlooked
Rochester and Strood which indicated that even the most optimistic
Labour supporters might be conceding that one.
Talking of Paul Francis our political editor,
those who attended our election hustings last week at the Royal
Albion pub in Maidstone, from whatever political hue, agreed that
he chaired the event expertly. He combined deep knowledge of the
issues, both locally and nationally, with humour and fairness. As I
mentioned in conclusion on the night, it really isn’t his day
job.
The debate provided some robust exchanges,
consensus on some issues and division on others. Many people came
up to me afterwards to thank the paper for staging the meeting and
saying how it had helped them gain a clearer view of the
personalities and the issues. And that’s the exact point of the
exercise – it isn’t an electioneering platform for the candidates -
it’s all about the voters.
Tuesday, May 04 2010
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