Another classic from the great Steve Bell ...

.... surely the Hogarth de nos jours.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/oct/13/steve-bell-vince-cable-tuition-fees

The Skin

and I feel thoroughly disillusioned by now. Can I learn to love Miliband mi. instead?

But it's early days yet ...

The Skin

I have never belonged to any party (might have joined Labour in Attlee's day!), but have always been simply an anti-Tory voter, who usually supports 'issue' groups rather than a party. I have liked and supported a few individual Labour and (left-wing) LibDem MPs, as well as a Green councillor and Euro-candidate who sadly died young. Alas, so often the leader at the time when power is possible is the wrong one - or perhaps the more opportunistic leaders are the ones most able to seize the opportunity for power. But if only John Smith had not died; if only Charlie Kennedy had not taken to drink....

I sometimes express my disappointments with Our Great Leaders through folk song parodies. Here is my 'Nick Clegg' one to the tune of 'Do You Love an Apple?'

(link to original: http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/jet/lyrics/apple.html)

Do you love an apple; do you love a pear;
Do you love a Tory with arrogant air?
Still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

Before I was with him, I spoke for the poor.
Now that I'm with him, I can't any more.
But still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

I thought it a crime to go into Iraq,
But now that I'm with him, must take such things back.
But still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

Before I was with him, my party did grow.
Now that I'm with him, it's polling down low.
But still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

When real jobs are going, he'll choose his own friends.
When he needs window-dressing, I'm there for his ends.
But still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

Do you love an apple; do you love a pear;
Do you love a Tory with arrogant air?
Still I love him; must support him;
I'll go with him wherever he goes.

I am not in a position to throw stones. I abstained in my safe-Labour seat but admittedly I would have voted Lib Dem in any Tory-Lib Dem marginal back in May. If I had been in that situation now I certainly would have looked back with unclean murkiness and remorse.

have done no other. But the circumstances were unusual ; and I certainly hope that some of them (see second half of next paragraph!) remain unusual!

It's one of the most marginal LibDem/Tory seats in the country, and Labour have no chance here. Our former MP - who lost by an agonizingly 'Florida-esque' narrow margin - was on the left of the LibDem party, and the Tory who replaced him is a twit (and did I mention that she is a Tory?!) Even though he would have had to co-operate to some degree with the coalition if elected, it would have been better than having a full-blown Tory. Especially as there were some very weird and nasty - almost 'Palinite' - goings-on. Though the seat is marginal for a variety of reasons, what seems really to have tipped the balance this time was a vicious smear campaign by Christian Right types, and in particular the local, and particularly extreme and nasty, representative of the nearby branch of the anti-abortion organization LIFE. Not to mention collusion by a nutter from the Animal Liberation Front! I have seen enough of other countries' experiences to realize that once religious nuts and anti-abortion 'concerned citizens' and the like are able to get candidates in and out, it is the 'rot in the root' and likely to lead to the whole political climate becoming far more right-wing. So I think that stemming such a tide was/is/would have been particularly important. When the defeat of your MP is described by both Tim Montgomerie and the Torygraph's Rev. George Pitcher as 'the best result of the election', you can conclude that it would on the whole have been better to prevent it!

I feel more remorse over the vote that I gave many years ago to Chris Huhne when he was a candidate here - but even then, I feel I could have done no other; if he had won that time, it would have prevented the dreadful then-incumbent Tory MP John Patten from becoming one of our worst Education Secretaries ever.

As you can gather, the rather unusual nature of my constituency had made me a long-time tactical voter for the LibDems- either all 6, or 5 out of the 6 last elections (I don't remember what I finally decided to do in 1992). I would doubtless feel a great deal more 'buyers' remorse' if I had actually 'bought' my voting decision from the Clegg campaign, and changed from a previously Labour, or other, vote. In fact, the only year when I actually voted LibDem out of choice was 2005, for Kennedy against Blair. I have never cared for Clegg, and his leadership of the party was very definitely a negative for me from the beginning.

At the moment, I am disillusioned with almost *all* high-level political leadership in this country: the good leaders don't win, and the ones who win (Blair) or get into key positions (Clegg) are nasty or useless. Perhaps Ed Miliband will be a breath of fresh air, but we shall see. But what disillusions and frustrates me most of all is the standard of most of our media: vile; vicious; baying for the blood of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan. They are obviously furious with their subjects, us voters, for being so careless and disobedient as to fail to give them the absolute majority for the Tories that they demanded of us! After their vicious smear campaign against Gordon Brown, it was a rather sweet irony that Rochdale, the scene of 'Bigotgate', was one of the very few Labour *gains* in the country (from the LibDems not the Tories, but still a gain!) Naughty naughty Rochdale voters, not to do as the Sun and Mail and Express commanded you to do!