Polls Close In Four Minutes: What's Been Happening?

Been a funny old day. The first election day for a very long time when I've had so little personal involvement. Voted a couple of weeks ago. Did some voter iD work, leaflet drops, and some eve of poll type things. But not much today. Beetling around, taking things in is about all.

But today I've been on different vital missions. Couple of Diary stories ticking away. Some work work. Trying to sell a ship. That's a long story. Senior Management Team of a Charity to pull apart, dust down and put back together again.

More prosaically ... Fixed the power steering on the Volvo. Changed a popped lightbulb. Tried to move, dropped and smithereened another that was a little too hot. Ouch. Adjusted a BMX bike. Pondered tearing up and re-laying some crazy paving. Cups of tea here and there, dotted about. Must use up this Quality Save batch. Yeuch!

Some if not all of which activity would normally have been shelved for an election. Even in the 1999 (was it?) Euro Election, isolated a month after some "real" elections as I recall, I did far more in the run up and on the day. Though that was flat too. And in 2004 it was 15-hour days all through, being in parallel with the Manchester all-out.

The turn out could be very depressed indeed in areas with no County Council elections, in other words many Labour cities and towns. Hard to tell isn't it. This isn't an all-postal, but there are a lot of postals out there. Could be an overlooked factor if you ask me.

Unless the whipped up righteous indignation of the likes of Kelvin Sleazeball Mackenzie gets the walk up vote out? And unless their local "sleaze bag MP" is a Tory that's not so good for the Labour Party Euro vote either.

Certainly there were no great queues or crowds at any Polling Station I passed today. One unusually in a school that was fully open for business. Another in a steel site office in an obscure suburban back street. Yet another at a scruffy drinking club. The sign above was a day or two ago and out in deepest Derbyshire. Where an extraordinarily successful Labour authority is under threat.

Took attack dogs Blears*, McBride, and Hennigan to Heaton Park early afternoon for their constitutional. Having to share the space with lots of Oasis-y punters and worrying whether those who Be Here Now had already been to vote ... Off later for daughter's ice skating coaching with Donna. She used to teach me too. These days she also does a good few Dancing On Ice celebs, including an ever-reducing Nolan sister.

Different territory to Bury and Crumpsall borders certainly, down Altrincham way. Polling stations here and there. But remarkably few street posters. Very depressed level of political activity. Back in 2004 the place had significance. There was a bit of a run in with Jean Marie Le Pen and Nicholas John Griffin at the Cresta Hotel. My Labour Against the BNP banner sat down in the road and got a bit stretched by the advancing Griff-Pen Limo and their arsey police and thug bodyguard.

Then again some big boys tipped some food waste bins all over their meinkamphwagen. And someone had it away with their windscreen wiper. Here's their "hanging" poster on the Oldham Road, near candidate Derek Adams' condemned wreck of a pub. In between lies a proper hoarding. The message? Confused.com is what.


Home and have just completed a YouGov online survey, related to these Euros and with some interesting nay strange questions within. And a couple of "Prize Draw" arrangements. One for £1,000! Trousered 50p cash money for my efforts on another! Not quite minimum wage, but hey ho. And a chance to win £25 on the low rent one.

If you sign up now at the link you might be able to take part too.

Son (13) is still not home from school. Little rascal. Left a message at 5:30 pm saying he was at the cinema and would be home no later than ... one hour ago. Grrrrr. It was 8:00 pm before we checked the ansaphone. Someone call social services.

Following that I did a bit of a "TV Prep" with an associate, headed for Shepherd's Bush later, and then read the Guardian's Stratton-Wintour-Hencke Hazel "Leona Blearsky" Blears Plot report. Seems the eight, count 'em, plotters have been ducking and diving about for a month or so. In revolutionary cells of twos and threes.

Never all alone in the same room at once. That kind of thing.

Pathetic in the extreme. They're all mad I tell you. And making a big song and dance about having no Campaign group folk in their number. As if these assorted bitter and twisted wing nuts were actual keeping the actually rather sensible "usual suspects" out of the Blearsy "Hotmail" Plot! The Guardianistas are just as bad. Thick as thieves with the plotters.

There's a fair chance it'll fizzle and die this one. The Telegraph could nail it and piss on the Guardian's chips with one of the big Tory stories they're sitting on. Or even take out one or two of the plotters. Or twist the knife in HB.

Anyone like a guess as to the eight plotter's names? Perhaps Flint, Chaytor, Morley, Gibson, Blears, Stringer, Prentice, and that other one. George is it?

* "Draper" who is a girl attack dog, has been renamed "Blears".