This is a nice photo. For you information, the proper ‘wet fish’ is on the left. The other is Zac Goldsmith. A lot of people couldn’t work that out, so its just for clarification. I’m not sure which one I’d rather see as mayor of London, once the votes are counted.

But before they’re counted they have to be cast.

Mel & I went to vote yesterday morning at about 8. There was a queue. And a woman wearing a lanyard looking flustered calling out whether those there had their polling cards. Fortunately we did. If I’d been on my own I wouldn’t have, but that’s why we keep little curly people around. They’re great organisers.

‘There’s been a bit of a problem’, lanyard said. ‘They’ve sent the wrong polling lists’. Oh. So if you haven’t got your polling card and you’re not on the list, you ain’t gonna vote. We weren’t on the list. So the guy scribbled our names on and the numbers from our polling cards and we voted.

But taking polling cards to vote is not a requirement. Loads of people don’t bother. Why would they? Giving people their right to vote is a requirement. Not only that, its the fundamental right in a democracy. If you live in Saudi Arabia you don’t get to vote. No point. The Sheikh won about 19 generations ago. Live in Egypt and they give you a vote, then shoot the guy who won and put their own guy back in charge. The guy with the biggest gun. In America they let you vote but they let orange-faced, combed-over tossers into the fray.

Emily Pankhurst died to give me the vote. I’m gonna bloody vote.

Yet I live in the borough of Barnet. And that’s where the problem was. Barnet. People who have but one job, to send out ‘voting lists’ fucking failed. They have had 4 years to get the lists right for this election, and then ‘ooops’, shit, I sent the wrong list. Never mind. We’ll sort it out on the day. Fortunately the polling cards (which lots of people don’t bring) were sent from the right list. Database malfunction. Tosser malfunction, more like.

They did sort the problem but not for about 4 hours. By which time lots of people hadn’t been given their opportunity to vote and couldn’t do it later.

And I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist but Barnet happens to be the borough with the highest Jewish population in London. Its our ghetto. Ok, its quite a pretty ghetto, but its safe to say that a high proportion would not be voting for anyone remotely Labour, following recent events. So if you are a Labour person, cocking up Barnet, of all the boroughs, could be seen as something of an advantage.

What a fucking mess.

They’re still counting. Will it be the ‘closet jihadi’ or the wet fish? Watch this space.

Happy Friday

A xxxx