May 3rd Local Elections

GUYS!  THE LEAST GLAMOROUS ELECTIONS IN THE UK ARE HAPPENING ON MAY 3RD!

So not-glamorous in fact that I probably didn’t realise I could vote in them until I was maybe 21, 22 years old?  (I was young and foolish.)  Local elections across London and large areas of England!  Get yea out to the polling station on May 3rd and vote for your local council.  Sure, they won’t be on TV much, but you get three of them for every local ward (for example, my local area has 16 wards across 2 boroughs and 48 councillors to 2 MPs) and they’re supposed to be your calling point for pesky local issues like anti-social behaviour, littering, local environment, recycling, sports facilities, planning permission (did you not like that giant corporate tower block with millionaire’s flats built on the site of the old community centre?  Oops…), healthcare including mental health and social services and local education funding.

And oh yes… local councils across the UK have had their funding halved since 2010 by the Conversative government, resulting in various fun frolicks such as the selling off of public parks and spaces, the slashing of local social and housing services, the closing down of sexual health clinics, women’s refuges, youth projects, libraries and dementia services and the reduction of direct funding to pupils in primary and secondary schools!  Because when the Tories said they wouldn’t cut healthcare or education, they meant apart from that stuff.

Are you irritated yet?

GET YEA TO THE POLLING STATION!

Also, incidentally… local elections are also a great time to vote for those smaller, fun parties like, oh I don’t know, the Greens… because you might have quandries about giving your conscience-vote to one MP in a desperately uneven first past the post general election, but hey… 48 councillors!  That’s a whole load more opportunity to vote for what you believe, rather than to keep the other guy out.

One to contemplate on your way to the ballot box!