Although many people suspect I spend all of my life on Twitter, I actually rarely look at it and when I do, I even more rarely look at Political Accounts. The only time I do is when I am researching a blog. I am really not that excited about the changes Elon Musk has made to Twitter, however a comment posted on my blog recently made me curious. I wasn't actually aware thatt Musk had changed it so that you can see the tweets of people who've blocked you. This was the comment
Nov 18, 2024
Although it was posted last week, I only really thought about it today (been a bit busy). My first reaction was "Is this right?". I thought I'd do a little experiment. The only person I could think of that has blocked me, is disgraced former Tory Councillor Brian Coleman. I am sure there are a few others, but TBH their tweets were so dull that I've not missed them and pretty much forgotten them. So I did a search on Brian's account and sure enough, I could see all of his tweets. The only thing I can't do is comment on them. I realised that this also means that anyone I blocked can see my tweets. Does this bother me? Not really, I just don't want to interact with them and if they had half a brain, all they needed to do was set up another account to spy on me. What alarmed me more was that the first post I saw by Brian was one I thoroughly agree with. Much as I dislike the man, he sometimes does post sensible things and one of the few things I do quite like about him is that he will pull up fellow Tories when they talk nonsense. In this case, his ire was directed at Matthew Goodwin-Freeman, a rather dopey councillor from Harrow. Mr Goodwin- Freeman was getting terribly excited about the number of people signing the Parliamentary petition to call a general election overtaking the number of votes The Greens got.
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This is just silly and not the way we run our Country . Government by petition ? not for me
I have long been rather sceptical of such petitions. I recognise that petitions have a place, especially on local issues. If a school needs a new pelican crossing or you want to save a library, they are a good way to mobilise support. I recall when we got a huge petition for the Save Barnet's Libraries campaign, the local Tories got rattled (much to Brian's annoyance no doubt) and had a rethink. Sadly for the local Tories, the bloke who was the "Cabinet Minister" responsible was a bit dim (sorry his name escapes me, I could look it up, but he was a nonentity and life is too short) and botched the new proposals so badly that he lost his seat at the next election, having thought that closing Friern Barnet library was a good idea.
The reason why pettitions are effective at local elections is that something like a campaign to save a library is hyper local and councillors know that it is worth listening to voters, as a few votes can cost a seat. What struck me was the number of Tory voters that were cross about it, when we collected signatures. Engaging them enabled us to ask them to speak to councillors they knew. I suspect every irate Tory supporter telling them off was worth around 2000 signatures from Labour members. This is very different to a petition calling for another general election, which is a national matter and involves huge numbers. Another point our nice but dim Harrow Councillor may have not understood is that the Greens and The Lib Dems, who he refers to in his Tweet are both opposition parties and supporters of both are probably just as likely to sign the petition as Tories, as most of the ones that I've spoken to have been distinctly underwhelmed by Starmer and probably feel their parties would do better if there was an election, and it also may persaude Starmer to lean more towards the policies that would shore up the centre left.
To me, the whole idea of this petition is wrong headed and lazy. The idea that signing a petition, which takes a minute to do and no investment in time or effort, might force a government to call a snap election is ridiculous. If the 2 million people who signed really want change, join an opposition party, pay your subs, knock on doors, stuff envelopes, hold tea mornings, stand on street stalls etc. If the Tory memberhip went up from the current figure of 172,000 to 2,000,000 then Keir Starmer may worry.
Given that nearly ten million people voted Labour, the fact that people who support other parties might want an election and be silly enough to sign the petition means nothing. If every time the government was forced to take unpopular measures, it resulted in a petition and a general election, we'd never have any peace. After the last 18 months of the last Tory government, I doubt too many sensible Tories would actually want an election now. I suspect that if there was, all we'd see is Reform taking a lot of votes and a few seats off the Tories. I suspect that the difficult truth for the Tories is that even though Labour's policies are highly unpopular with Tory voters, this is far less true for Labour support. I doubt too many farmers and small business owners are Labour. The bottom line is that there won't be a general election any time soon. This might annoy whoever signed the petition, but as Brian says, this is not how we do things in Britain.
It will be interesting to see if Kemi Badenoch raises the petition at PMQ's on Wednesday. Unless it has reached ten Million (ie more than the Labour vote at the General election) she'd be silly to. One thing I am sure Brian realises that his dim colleague in Harrow doesn't is that General Elections are expensive. Another one now would probably financial cripple the Tories and it's unlikely they'd win. The new leader hasn't got a her feet under the table yet and needs time to get on top of her brief. In all honesty, I suspect that by the time we have an election in the real world (as opposed to in exciteable and dim councillors dreams), the Tories will be on their next leader. I am sure that Sir Keir Starmer is having a few sleepless nights at the moment. I doubt any of them are caused by this petition.
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