May Town Talk

Our man had the giggles! He was spluttering uncontrollably over his keyboard. His fits of laughter interjected only by a long gasp on his roll up.

“Control yourself man.” barked the editor, it’s bad enough when you don’t bother to turn up for last month’s edition, but insult to injury when you laugh about it.”

Our man swallowed hard, which only succeeded in producing a large burp.

“Sorry boss, I was on one of my famous walkabouts. Interviewing the political intelligentsia, those worthy candidates who presented themselves for election in the May election. My wanderings led me to all corners of the Borough. Most of those I spoke to were genuine caring individuals. However I came across that phenomena known as a “paper candidate”. Apparently when a particular party believes it cannot win a ward they invite a believer to put their name on the ballot purely to create some sort of an election contest. These worthy “paper” candidates follow the party whip and duly canvas the doors and turn up for the count, however they know in their heart of hearts that the grand title of councillor is unlikely to be theirs. But loyalty to the party is everything and I suppose they view it as some sort of apprenticeship for the real thing. However in this contest the idea backfired! Some of these “paper” hopefuls actually got elected! I trust they have recovered from the shock and feel suitably capable to represent those people who they never expected to vote for them.”

The editor thought for a second, looked hard and long at our man and pronounced, “It’s called, Democracy. Idiot.! The undeniable right to stand even if you may have a secret dread of actually winning.”

“True boss, true.” our man conceded, “My giggles were bought on however by reading the election pamphlets. To avoid embarrassment to any individual I shall not name names, but one leaflet that hit my letterbox had a photo of one candidate which only lacked the number around his neck to qualify as a police mug shot! Surprisingly enough he did not win! Perhaps he was also a paper candidate.

The star of the election leaflets however must go to an independent candidate. True she did not have big party backing and all the spin that goes with it. However her word processor seems to have let her down somewhat. It only seems to work in capital letters and the spell checker is obviously not functioning. Full stops were deemed to be unnecessary and I was out of breath by the time I had read the contents . The two biggest faux pars however were the words:

INDEPENDANT and COUNCILOR

Not an inspiration to the reading potential voter. However at least she had a go.”

“That is the whole point, you cretin.” snapped the editor, “The undeniable right to stand, no matter what your mug shot looks like and no matter how lacking your grasp of basic English grammar and spelling.”

Editors note; The views expressed above may not be those of the publisher