Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business
Bored by the election already? If you want to avoid it completely, I suggest a three-week holiday in scenic Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, where the national dish is boiled horse, the national pastime is bride-kidnapping, and they still change governments the old-fashioned way, with a little help from their friends in the Kremlin. But if you merely dislike watching our own politicians sniping at each other on television, and yearn for a form of debate that addresses real-life issues, I recommend signing on to help your local candidate, of whichever party you prefer, in door-to-door campaigning. I did it in the last four general elections with my sitting (but now honourably retiring) Conservative MP John Greenway, criss-crossing a huge constituency from the commuter estates north of York to the remotest hamlets of the wolds and moors, talking to people about their experience of the NHS, their pensions and savings, their understanding of what should be the limits of the state, and their often blood- curdling views on Brussels, immigration and capital punishment. I never had a dull day.
In 1992, these doorstep and bus-stop encounters gave me a vivid understanding of the enduring potency of Margaret Thatcher, even though she had already departed the political stage. Many older voters, whatever their economic circumstances or social class, voiced strong admiration for her as a person. A good proportion of younger ones talked about aspiration for their children or their small-business ventures in terms that were, perhaps unconsciously, pure Thatcherite. Most people liked the ordinariness of John Major, especially on his soapbox; no one liked anything much about Neil Kinnock; and I can picture now the close of neat little houses near the York bypass where, a day or two after Kinnock’s notorious Sheffield rally, it became obvious to me that the Tories were heading for victory.
But I never had that feeling again: in 1997 and 2001 we knew it was hopeless, and in 2005, on a new-built estate near the army camp at Strensall, I had a moment which made me wonder whether the Tories would ever return to power.
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