Way to vote

Lib Dems have wound me up by declaring they'll make Catholic schools take non-Catholics if they live close to the school.

"We will ensure that all faith schools develop an inclusive admissions policy and end unfair discrimination on grounds of faith when recruiting staff," (Lib Dem manifesto page 37)

But such people, eschewing the faith, can refuse to attend the religious assembly, so take the education but not the culture that comes with a faith. And yet the Catholic communitypays towards the school. Yes, I know faith schools take public money too, but since the Catholic community contributes, local non-Catholics shouldn't get priority over more distant Catholic children. That's not right or fair.

So how do I vote? Our alternative is the Conservative candidate, David Lidington, but he apparently (according to the Lib Dem literature) has claimed £12,000 for dry cleaning expenses. £12,000!. Husband and self together in decades couldn't spend so much on dry cleaning - and why on expenses? That's what a salary is for. And then when you retire, you save money because you don't need to spend on dry cleaning, so you can live on your little pension.

So how do I vote?

Council polls

Today we vote for our county councillors. The parties all sent leaflets, but the Conservatives had a leaflet that said that at a council meeting, the Conservatives had voted for lower taxes, and the Lib Dems had walked out in protest. That sounded so weird that I tried to contact them to ask them to explain. But I haven't heard back yet. I also emailed the local Lib Dems, and again, I've not yet heard back, but I did meet a little lib Dem bird in the street who told me that the debate was whether to use the money on hospital services or whether to save the council tax money, that the Chair wouldn't let the Liberals speak so they walked out. That sounds likely, given that I witnessed the Chair not letting Liberals speak at the council meeting in November (recorded here) and blogged it then. The minutes of the meeting when the Lib Dems didn't vote is kept at the County Council site, and the incident reads much less contentiously than the way the Conservatives reported it.

So I went to the polling booth this morning, and asked the lone Conservative. But he didn't know anything about it! Didn't he even read his own party's leaflet? To me, it looks like the local Conservatives are acting underhand, immorally, don't brief each other of the line they are taking so some of them are ignorant of what is going on in their own party.