Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

David Cameron is sending me begging letters

But it's no good. I'm from a family of Ukip-voting nimbys

[PETER MACDIARMID/AFP/Getty Images] 
issue 08 March 2014

A letter arrives from David Cameron, asking me to vote by post in the European elections. Presumably he means vote by post for the Tory party.

The letter has a postal ballot application form all filled out with my name and address. I just have to sign and return it in the envelope provided. ‘Apply for a postal vote today and help us secure an EU referendum… If I am Prime Minister after the next general election, there will be an in-out referendum by the end of 2017. This is my personal pledge to you…Yours sincerely, David Cameron.’

I stare for a long time at this letter feeling strange, conflicting emotions. The main thing that hits me is this: things are obviously much worse for the Conservatives than I had thought.

The Prime Minister must be desperate if he’s writing to ask me to vote for him. Doesn’t he read the newspapers? The day the letter arrives I have intimated in an opinion piece that he makes up policy as he goes along — riding a husky sled one minute, talking about ‘green crap’ the next.

I feel awful now.

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