Dear Editor,
In their letter published on 24 June, Mr. or Ms. J. Whiten is mistaken on several levels.
Read: Letters: “The only person showing authentic leadership and vision is Nigel Farage”
There has only been one ‘scheduled’ general election in the UK: that of 7 May 2015 upon the expiration of the Tory-Lib Dem austerity coalition. The timing of every other general election has been at the whim of the sitting prime minister.
While the first Thursday in May is a popular date for general elections – it allows at least some of the country to vote in local elections simultaneously, reducing costs and hassle, and the weather isn’t usually too bad – only five (1979, 1997, 2005, 2010 and 2015) of the 22 general elections since World War Two have taken place then.
Mr. or Ms. Whiten is correct that opinion polls are sometimes wrong. Like him or her, I too remember the 1992 election and the Brexit referendum: in each case, some polls called the results correctly but most were out by small amounts within the margin of error.
No opinion poll has been out by anything like the 20+% Labour currently leads the dismal Rishi Sunak’s failing, flailing Conservatives.
Most wrong of all, however, is Mr. or Ms. Whiten’s call for “change” by voting for the Reform Party.
While it was the Conservative Party’s many recent prime ministers who drove the UK into a ditch, the person in the passenger seat holding the map was Nigel Farage.
Has anyone been more guilty of “poor economic decision-making” than Farage in his brainless pursuit of Brexit? That decision is costing the Exchequer £40 billion a year. Genius!
Farage’s “vision”- shared by most Conservatives – is of a country with even worse public services than we endure now; where the NHS is eaten alive by private companies; where environmental and consumer protections are swept away; and where the country becomes ever more insular and ever more globally irrelevant.
We’ve had more than enough devil-take-the-hindmost politics in this country. Thatcherite, neoliberal economics have been an unmitigated failure unless you are fortunate enough to be in the top 1% of the population.
Perhaps Mr. or Ms. Whiten is so fortunate. For the sake of the rest of us, I urge your readers to use their vote to repudiate the Farageist nightmare scenario and vote for the candidate in each Bedfordshire constituency best placed to ensure the Conservatives are ejected from office and they and their Reform buddies are kept as far away from power as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Westwood
Stanley Street, Bedford
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