Wednesday 14 April 2010

William Hague takes Richmond Voters for Granted

Are you a voter in the Richmond constituency? Feel taken for granted? Well you should be. William Hague is so confident of victory in the Richmond constituency that he has refused a request to debate the issues with fellow candidates. After all, the Darlington and Stockton Times says that voters in the Richmond constituency are so predictable that Hague’s victory is inevitable (D&S Times editorial 9/4/10) and clearly William Hague agrees. So an invitation to the traditional Richmond “Churches Together” electoral debate has been accepted by me on behalf of the Green Party and all the other candidates (Methodist Church 30th April 2010), except for the all too superior Mr Hague.

Why is William Hague so afraid to meet his opponents in public debate? Is he afraid that his twenty-one years of doing little for his constituents in Parliament will come into question? Is he afraid that his support for the Iraq war, exposed by me in the Richmond "Churches Together" debate in the 2005 general election, will come back to haunt him? Or the thousands of pounds of untaxed income he claimed in Parliamentary expenses will actually be discussed by his constituents? Or are there other dark secrets that William Hague does not want to risk coming to light? Has he and Seb Coe been secretly riding that log flume wearing baseball caps again? Or has he been out on the town drinking the 14 pints of beer he boasted he drank a day as a teenager? (BBC News. 8 August 2000, source Wikipedia).

The truth is that William Hague is “frit” as Margaret Thatcher would say: he is too frightened to risk a debate that may expose the shallowness of his policies and the limits of his commitment to the Richmond constituency. He is so wrapped up in his own importance that he believes that he will be swept back into parliament on his reputation alone.

Well, in a 2001 nationwide poll for the Daily Telegraph, 66% of voters considered him to be "a bit of a wally" and 70% of voters believed he would "say almost anything to win votes" (source Wikipedia). Now he is saying nothing to his constituents and refusing to debate with his opponents.

So I appeal to voters in the Richmond constituency: please do not be taken for granted and waste your vote on Hague. Vote with your head and your heart, vote for the Green Party!

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