We are in a State of Crisis!

Written by David Chappell and published in EADT on Tue 23rd Mar 2010

I can sympathise with the concerns of Brain Pinner (EADT 18th March) but he should not forget the last time the lights went out it was Tory Government running the country!

I have to warn him against relying on the reports he reads. I was present at the Lib Dem Conference, and spoke to senior members of the party. There is no mood in the party to support a failed Labour Government that fails to get a majority. There is also understandable trepidation about the thought of a Tory Government. There was after all a reason why Tony Blair won a landslide majority. Under the Tories interest rates rocketed and the pound Sterling collapsed. British manufacturing industry was devastated and the love affair with the city was started leading to our current crisis. The Poll Tax led to riots in the streets, and lack of preparedness led to a war in the Falklands!

So people have every reason to be wary of the thought of a Tory government. Is George Osborne really the man to be in the Treasury to sort out this crisis. Or would you prefer Vince Cable?

But we also have an environmental crisis? Can we rely on a man who thinks cycling to work is the solution, while his briefcase travels in the car behind, to really understand what needs to be done to combat climate change? Despite the controversy over the certain e-mails the scientific evidence suggest we have until the end of the next parliament to take action, after which it will be too late.

And we have a political crisis of confidence, which the latest lobbying exposures have highlighted, remains unresolved. Why have not the Labour and Tory parties addressed the public's concerns before this election? We need 150 less MP's, we need the power to sack MP's who fail. We need a voting system that delivers a government the majority want, and an elected second chamber.

We are in a crisis. Who sorts it out will not depend on David Cameron, George Brown, or Nick Clegg. It will depend on those people who go out to vote. It will not depend on the panic stricken city bankers, who got us into this mess with their greedy purchase of bad debts from American mortgages, fearing a hung parliament.

I'm fed up with all this. So I am standing for Parliament myself. Would I back Labour or Tory? No, neither. In such a crisis perhaps the politicians should stop squabbling and work together.