For the last week I’ve undergone interweb cold turkey on account of being ensconsed in one of England’s safer constituencies, pounding the streets on behalf of a major political party.<\/p>\n
Pretentious shroud of anonymity aside, the limited feeling I’ve picked up from middle England’s doorstep is, perhaps, predictable. Aside from the usual core of rock-solid Tories and Old Labour socialists (as well as a scattering of Lib-Dem loyalists) the most common feeling has been one of total dissatisfaction (bordering on disgust) with Blair. I say Blair rather than Labour, as the most common reaction has been “we have to get that man out”. Immigration is, sadly, a popular topic for concern, but residual anger over the war was stronger than I expected, especially given national polls which show it low down the list of concerns.<\/p>\n
One powerful impression was of more active engagement than 2001. It would be downright stupid to extrapolate national feeling from such a tiny, unbalanced sample, but nonetheless it was encouraging to feel that people this time around are really taking an interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last week I’ve undergone interweb cold turkey on account of being ensconsed in one of England’s safer constituencies, pounding the streets on behalf of a major political party. Pretentious shroud of anonymity aside, the limited feeling I’ve picked … Continue reading