Err, what?

Seconded, and I’ll add that closing libraries is just one well-heeled step awat from book-burning.

Where were the other candidates during the libraries campaign? What do they have to say about it now?

I think it does say something if a candidate knocks on your door in a normal election, or if someone knocks on your door inbetween election periods. Definitely some candidates do it more than others (and some parties more than others), and in my experience the candidates who canvass the most tend to be the better-quality ones (regardless of left-right politics, although that distinction here is within the Labour Party rather than across parties, as I can only speak to what I know).

However, during a parliamentary by-election if all candidates from the major parties at least aren’t full-time on the stump then they’re not running a serious campaign. Whether you see someone or not is just dumb luck; whether you happen to be in when they knock your street. Certainly you can’t go by anecdotal evidence on blogs.

Protest votes are what bielections are about, anyway.

If you are referring to the bookmakers, which isn’t the same thing as an opinion poll, the Greens are doing better than the Lib Dems and Murray.

Cath, look at the policies of each of the candidates. Decide which is closest to your own political beliefs. Then choose. Voila!

Libraries are a mark of civilisation, their destruction is the mark of the barbarian.

Neverthless, I would like to ask, on behalf of the rest of us who live on this ‘ere sceptered shpping hazard off the north-west coast of the Atlantic, whether, having determined who it is you wish to leave your local community most during the next 12 months from those on offer, what other benefits your country might provide you with?.

Suitable matters for consideration may include, for example, whether it would be necessary for the people to elect an MP at all, if sufficient space was available in prisons or psychiatric institutions?

Do you think a country whose intellectuals take a huge pride in the fact that they came from two universities whose main claim to fame is that they’ve managed to produce a couple of dozen students who don’t actually sink often when trying to paddle a few yards down a river, to the intense relief of the rest of the planet, would have cut it with your mums and dads, grandmas, grandads? Or do you think they were more interested in defeating Hitler and things?

Does there seem to be a lack of thrust, of idealism here?

S

Here is my small confession, I never use the library, I buy books (supporting my favourite, independent bookstore in the process), but the death of the library makes me shudder.

What kind of society closes libraries? A pretty short sighted one in my view. Instead of sending copies of ‘Nineteen Eighty four’ to MPs, perhaps we should be handing out copies of ‘Fahrenheit 451’

This. Yes.

When I was growing up I had a library on my walk home from primary school and visited it two or three times a week. When I went to secondary school I outgrew the local library (I had read most things in it, anyway) and used the central library in town, but I still popped in from time to time, took my younger brother there, etc. You can’t measure the value of these kinds of institutions by footfall alone.

Sorry Peter, you’re the candidate, not moi. You get to put up your pix, address etc, not moi. You get to take all the decisions…oh, sorry, of course, in your case you don’t, do you? VOTE BAGGS AND DON’T WORRY, I DON’T STAND FOR ANYTHING!

Hmmm. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue does it? Will have to work on it….

For a start, there are very few issues that the electorate as a whole is remotely interested in. They would far rather get on with their work or businesses or raising their families or watching football or cricket or fishing or whatever. They expect their politicians to take decisions for them. Very many of them can’t be raised from their slumber even once in four or five years to get to a polling booth.

That they can’t could, in one sense, be due to the stultifying nature of two party politics. In another sense, it could be viewed as testement to the fact that, by and large, those involved in politics do a pretty good job, good enough at least to dissuade the population from preventing them from doing it when given the chance.

And apart from all that, it’s clear from a moment’s glance at your website that you’re far too big to be a puppet.

You mean you’ve heard nothing from the All New Libertarian and Fluffy Puppy Party of the United Kingdom? Shame …

I know, and nothing from the BNP, which as I’ve got the booby traps all set at my front door I’m actually really disappointed about

Kentron As Norfolk is a big rural county we’ve probably got one of the biggest mobile library services going. But they’re used as you’ve said for villages and such, not in the city. We used to have what they called Special Services mobiles, that delivered to old folks’ homes in the city, but my understanding is even these are now being replaced by the housebound service, and again, that’s about bringing books to people rather than encouraging/helping people to get out and about themselves.