onionbagblog

It’s not all about the local elections, y’know (actually it is for me…)

There’s the small matter of the General Election that you may have heard something about today. But for General Election, read local issues. We are after all being asked to vote for an MP that will serve the needs of local constituents.

With Vauxhall more or less a shoe in for Tally Hoey, I have been looking around to hear what the other candidates standing in my ward (Vauxhall, *not* East Hampshire) have to say about the local agenda.

Caroline Pigeon of the LibDems is leading heavy on transport; Jeremy Drinkhall is offering an anti-capitalist alternative to the slick, Nu Labour operation in Lambeth. The Tories are nowhere to be seen.

But what of the Greens? If any national political party can cross both the international and local divide, then surely it must be the Greens?

Joseph Healy is campaigning to be become the Green MP for Vauxhall - and boy, he truly is campaigning on anything and everything that doesn’t include my little patch of South London.

I was rather disappointed to discover that political schisms exist within Green politics. The Green Left is apparently the placard-waving wing of the Greens. Joseph is rather fond of waving his placard around at any issue he disagrees with.

I like my politicians to be passionate; but I also like them to be passionate about local issues. If we all took care of our own little patch, then just possibly, some form of global harmony may be achieved.

A single blog post wouldn’t do justice to the platitude of placards that Joseph has been rallying for over the past few weeks. A Google map representing the locations where the Green candidate has been campaigning around the world gives a more accurate analysis.

Vauxhall doesn’t feature.

Being an Internationalist is all fine and well. But I was rather hoping to vote for a candidate on May 6th who would look a little closer to home before rushing off to save the world. All that globetrotting can’t be good for the carbon footprint count.

Here be the geo-tagged candidate that wants to represent the good people of Vauxhall: