I sent the following email to the Conservative candidate (Andrew Percy) for My Constituency:
Good Morning Andrew,
When Labour came into power in 1997 I was just about to leave High School aged 16. In the last 13 years I have been to College, joined the RAF as an Officer, left the RAF and had a series of jobs and promotions in the private sector — I currently drive to Leeds every day where I am an IT Manager in a software firm. I got married nearly 3 years ago and have a little girl who is 1 in a couple of weeks. In the last 13 years, I have become increasingly frustrated with what I get out of the government. This may seem selfish, but everything that your Labour opposition has done, and the Labour government in general has had either no or negative impact on my way of life. To summarise some of these failures:
I drive 35 miles to work every day — Road Tax and Fuel duty going up all the time doesn’t help. We bought our first house after we got married. We played it safe and got a fixed 5 year mortgage at a reasonable rate — then because of the recession the base rate went through the floor and we are paying 5 or 6 times what we could have been! Tied in to this, we are in an obscene amount of negative equity with our house, so we will not be able to look at moving for a considerable amount of time. My wife and I have quite well paid jobs, and as such do not benefit from the ludicrous benefits system that most of the people in our town seem to get the most out of by not being in work and staying at home. During my wife’s pregnancy, I was astounded by the lack of midwives (although I couldn’t fault their dedication), ward nurses and doctors with a grasp of English that meant I could understand what they were telling us. I have friends in the RAF, who are on deployment fighting in two seemingly pointless conflicts. Most recently, our current MP did not bother turn up for the second reading, or place a vote in a bill that was very important to me — the Digital Economy Bill
As you can probably tell, I am dissatisfied with the way things are. I want things to change. Currently, we have been canvassed by the Labour Candidate (or rather, some people canvassing on his behalf), but not by any other party. we received a pamphlet through the post yesterday from your campaign, but it seems the same as all the others we have received to be honest!
I am quite fortunate in that one of our employees has actually worked with you (On David Davis’ by-election campaign) and he assures me that you are a hard worker, and that the Conservatives manifesto addresses what my key issues are. I wanted to write to you personally to see if I could solicit a response from you that will sway me in your direction. I was very impressed (as was a good proportion of the country, by all accounts) with Nick Clegg’s performance in the TV debate, but I am not sure that a Lib Dem vote is right for me, or a valid choice in our constituency (looking at http://www.voterpower.org.uk/brigg-goole would suggest not).
So, here is your opportunity to win one, possibly 2 if you include my wife, votes — convince us!
Steve Garton http://blog.sheepeatingtaz.co.uk
It will be interesting to see if I get a reply, and what that reply contains. I have no interest in sending anything to the Labour candidate, and the Lib Dem candidate (if they exist) have not seen fit to let us know who they are! If and when they do, I will contact them in the same way.