Elections seem to be a bit like busses at the moment. You wait five years for one to come along and then we have four in thirty-six months.

 

 

 

Okay, one of them is a local election and here in Wimplebridge we’ve returned the same man for a dozen years. Jeff Dyson (no relation to the vacuum man) is an independent candidate and more conservative than the official party man, as long as he stays that way we will keep voting for him, better the devil you know after all.

But really, do we need a general election too. Well actually yes I think we do. Again, we already know who will win in our area, wherever that is? Wimplebridge sits between Stratford on Avon and Warwick, whenever they change the boundaries we flip flop into the other area. It doesn’t really matter because in our ward, Wimplebridge and Monkstown, they publish the winning majority by weight rather than numbers – it’s that big.

Anyway, Max and I will go to the village hall on Thursday evening, we do anyway because of the WI meeting, but this time I’ve got to put my “X” in a box. I’ll put my cross in the usual box and complain that it’s wrong that Max isn’t allowed a vote. He’s over eighteen, at least in dog years, no madder than any other Red setter I’ve ever met and much more sane than half the village. Time after time he’s shown that he’s a good judge of character – he bit the labour part candidate who came canvasing the other day – if that’s not demonstrating a good judge of character I don’t know what is.

Jeff Dyson (no relation to the vacuum man) will be returned to the local council and in any ordinary year we could all go back to ignoring politics for a few more years. But this isn’t a normal year, Mrs May, or Terrie as we call her around here, is dragging us out again on the 8th of June and it’s going to interrupt another WI meeting.

It really is too bad, we had a fascinating speaker lined up for that night, old Mrs Spencer has just come back from four weeks in Thailand and has agreed to do a talk about meditation and how to harness the power of the inner orgasm. I don’t think some of them know what they’re missing. I heard Karen Harris saying that she can’t see why Mrs Spencer was there for a month and she thought they had closed all the stores anyway. There’s a perfectly good range of ties at M&S in the precinct, near the bus stop, at Warwick.

So were going to miss the secrets of Thailand, probably a good thing, and once again the hall will be a polling station for the night. A few trusty souls will stand outside all day and conduct an exit poll, this is normally given to the newest members of the party in the area, everyone else knows it’s a thankless task and the best you can hope for is sunburn and swollen feet.

If I can make a prediction, Mrs May will be re-elected (I wonder if she is any relation to that nice James May from Top Gear and the Grand tTour, a very sensible man is James May, never drives too fast and won’t be seen running on television) with a much bigger majority which will let her get on with the business of Brexit. Around here we mostly voted to stay in, but the British people made a choice, the wrong one, and now we have to make the best of the choice they have made. It’s time to get united behind the prime minister and let them get on with the job without being sabotaged at every step of the way.

Claudilia Belcher