WHILST most of us will be thinking about plans for Christmas holidays, the politicians will be thinking about the next General Election!
With the new Fixed Term Parliaments act, we know that the next General Election will be held on Thursday 7th May 2015 and Parliament has designated two periods from when candidates’ spending and donations will be regulated.
The ‘long campaign’ period starts from today Friday 19th December 2014 and spending on things like advertising, leaflets and campaign costs all have to be recorded.
The ‘long campaign’ lasts until the day candidates become ‘official’ (i.e. when Parliament is dissolved) which is scheduled to be on 30th March 2015. The ‘short campaign’ of 25 days then begins leading up to polling day.
At this stage there are two candidates declared to contest the Parliamentary seat of Beverley & Holderness constituency currently occupied by Conservative Graham Stuart MP. They are Labour’s Margaret Pinder and UKIP’s Gary Shores.
graham stuart head pic1
margaret pinder twitter
gary shores ukip ppc candidate 2015
Phil, The Tories would like you to think that ! So people don’t bother to vote. But you have a real choice in May. (People did have a chance to change the electoral system in a referendum only 3 years ago, but it was heavily defeated.So first past the post it is).
The Tories take this area for granted – and it shows ! Labour has come close to taking Beverley & Holderness in the past. But nothing is set in stone. Its upto people to vote for change or not.
And May brings not only the General Election but also County Council and Town Council elections on the same day, where the South West Holderness seats are not “safe” at all – its a wide open race and a chance to get rid of the Tories in East Riding.
Don’t be conned into thinking “it’s not worth voting, the Tories will win” – that’s only true if you let them !
Sadly, thanks to our election system, our area is too much of a safe seat the Conservatives will be first past the post again. Labour won’t cut it and UKIP will no doubt be blighted with another fiasco of it’s members making inappropriate comments.