By Isle of Wight Observer
Do you remember that ‘Labour isn’t working’ Saatchi Ad in 1978? The agency’s old boss now says he’s backing Labour.
Political parties love slogans, but those ‘Stop the boats’ and ‘Take back control’ messages will go down in history for all the wrong reasons. We always enter the polling booth in hope, but there’s selfishness too. As ever, ‘winning here’ is all that matters, so they’ll all spend a fortune on adverts. Those ‘strong and stable’ Tories, who gave us three Prime Ministers in four months, just returned some of our taxes.
Bribing older people with pension boosts and winter fuel payments is another pre-election staple.
I always vote, but I’ve supported some real duds in my time; it’s hard not to be disillusioned. Housing failure is as good a reason as any to punish the Conservatives. My kids managed to get a toe onto the housing ladder, but they’re among the lucky ones. The housing market is a mess and the lack of affordable properties shameful. Few discuss it, but high net migration must be a factor.
Planning rules are nonsensical, and whatever gets built here is rarely what’s needed.
Developers like building big, detached houses on middle-of-nowhere greenfield sites for retirees and DFLs – because that’s where the juicy profits are.
Many young Islanders will never have homes of their own, bought or rented. There’s zero security in short-term rental, tenants can’t even put up pictures, or choose their wall colour. Should your landlord allow you to extend the tenancy, your rent will rise. If they terminate your agreement, you’ll struggle to find something else, and your children could need to change schools.
Instead of investing in mainland commercial property – which declined in value – why didn’t the IW Council build houses for rent? For decades, they’ve been renting properties from private Island landlords, your council tax paying off other people’s mortgages.
If elected, Labour promises 1.5 million new homes in just five years! I’m not convinced, but the Tories repeatedly promised leasehold reform, and it hasn’t happened. They pretend they’re going to have a go, but I’ll bet flat ‘owners’ still haven’t been protected before the next election. Our leasehold ground rent system is feudal and grossly unfair. ‘Things can only get better’ was part of Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ rebrand and that came with a promise to stick with the Tories’ spending plans. Voters were reassured – so they’ll probably do it again.
Foolishly, in the past, I’ve stuck with the Conservatives – even when John Major’s lot raised interest rates to the point where my house was nearly repossessed. On reflection, that’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?
Tony Blair swept John Major away, partly because the country was sick of sleaze.
Familiar repetitive stuff, eh? Blair tapped into that feeling of hope, his smooth-talking shtick had nearly everyone taken in for a while. When Gordon Brown’s premiership crashed and burned, Call me Dave arrived, and, infamously, there was no money left at the Treasury. Now 13-14 years later and the Tories look like paying them back!
The NHS staggers on and whatever they’ve done with St Mary’s, no-one here voted for it. Despite what their press releases say, it’s clearly now being run from the mainland, and surely that means more services will soon be ‘delivered’ over there.
The ferry companies must be cock-a-hoop.
Come polling day, a low turnout is predicted because even diehard Tories will struggle to get out and support the party. The question is, how many will prefer the Reform party’s ‘proper’ Conservative manifesto? In 2015 UKIP peaked here at around 15,000 votes. If Reform gets similar numbers, Bob will be on his bike with his P45. Still, at least that will put another rental property back on the market.