Election Special including the absolute duffers guide to AV

 After not having received anything from either the Labour or Conservative parties relating to tomorrows election, I emailed both parties yesterday saying that I was trying to fill out my postal vote wosisname and didn’t have any info on their candidates.

I got an email response from the Conservatives listing the names of their candidates standing in my ward, as they were already listed on the ballot paper I had told them I was trying to fill out, this wasn’t particularly helpful. It is this type of gormless logic that makes one wish one had a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate.

The Labour Party sent a candidate, so at least I got a response.

Next AV after a very uphill discussion about what this actually means, this is a best shot at a duffers explanation.

There are three candidates standing in the imaginary constituency of Fanit.

Ludicrous Lazyboy, standing for the Loony Left Party.

Ridiculous Roarer, standing for the Raving Right Party.

Mischievous Michael, standing for the Mad Middle Party.

So the three candidates are LL, RR and MM.

Under the present first past the post system 31 people vote for LL, 30 for RR and 30 for MM, LL gets elected.

Under AV 31 people vote for LL, 30 for RR and 30 for MM, as their first choice,

None of the Loony Left voters want the Raving Right Party to get in so they make their second choice MM.

None of the Raving Right voters want the Loony left to get in so they make their second choice MM, MM gets elected.

It does look as though the local elections here in Thanet are going to be a close run thing, so I would say it is worth making an extra effort to vote as every vote will probably count.

I have to admit that there seems to be a bit of a state of apathy about the whole thing here in Ramsgate neither party seems to have that much to offer us, with the main emphasis being on Margate. Certainly at the moment Margate needs all the help it can get so I don’t think anyone resents this, there is a bit of a things couldn’t get much worse feel to the whole thing, in terms of council owned assets there really isn’t that much left to close here.

Press releases in and published from Laura Sandys and Clive Hart, both asking us to vote tomorrow but nothing in from the Conservative candidates, do they want us to vote?