I'd imagine you should be able to get a pass- is there a specific allocation? When I was campaign organiser in the 2015 election it was literally just me, the election agent (who knocked off early) and the candidate, no one else wanted to come. The result wasn't announced until about midday on Friday, so it was a pretty long day. I'd rather have been at home with a pot of coffee!
Tell me a politician that hasn't. There isn't a politician out there who cares for what the people want otherwise Brexit would be done and dusted by now and we would be voting for the party to lead us forward. They've voted for how they feel not how their constituancy feels that they are supposed to be representing. All we're going to be voting for now is which way you want to balance yet another hung parliament that's going to screw us all over for another God knows how long on Brexit. Scrap the election and give the people the referendum again based on the facts of the deal BJ has delivered. Deal, no deal or remain. Whatever the outcome, that is where we go. Then we have an election for the people to decide who we want to lead us down the chosen path not before.
I could not agree with you more on this.
At previous elections there have been a large number (from all parties) at the count so demand is there - plus with counting two constituencies under the same roof it can get a bit cramped. Our counts also seem to attract interest from foreign broadcasters (there's an Asian channel that seemed to have rolling live coverage of our counts the last couple of times!). With this being my first GE since joining the party I'm not sure how allocation works.
What do "the people" want? There isn't anything close to a consensus on what Brexit should look like. If you believe the polls there isn't even a majority for Brexit anymore. Parliament reflects the reality of the public, which is that nobody can agree what Brexit should look like or if we should do it, and many of the opinions on the issue are based on lies trotted out on a regular basis by the irresponsible excuse for journalists and politicians in this country.
The MPs I've met all seem to be nice people (admittedly I've not met some of the "firebrand" types that exist across all the major parties), but I agree the tone generally needs to be a bit more conciliatory. The one that really makes me laugh* is Jess Phillips, who is a properly nasty piece of work yet was shouting loudly about the abuse she has received.
Sorry perhaps I wasn't clear - I don't doubt that most are kind people in life generally but I meant there is a lack of kindness within politics. The tone is largely appalling and as I say that seems to be extending to journalists and their use of language too.
Ah. Things are a little different in Central Devon!
If there isn't a majority for it then we stay but at least let the people decide that's what we want and then we vote a government in to take us down that path. We'll vote now basically on the Brexit debate because nothing else will get a look in. We'll end up with a hung parliament and go nowhere again for another three/four years just going around and around in every decreasing circles whilst in the meantime screwing the country up because the rest of Europe/World (depending on which side of the fence we do actually end up) can't work with us because it doesn't know what we're going to do. As for politicians caring. No they don't. They take pre-defined career path in the main. Study politics in college. Study politics in University. Get a job in politics. Become an MP. Old school politicians had lived life before they went into politics in the main and understood what the people wanted because they had lived the life of those they represented. They had been about and knew who they were and what they stood for. And when they finally did become MP's they got amongst the people to find out what was required. I live in Cranbrook. I've no idea who my MP is. I have visions it was Hugo Swire at one point but I don't know if it still is. I know more about my next door MP because Ben Bradshaw makes himself available, puts himself about and that is probably why, despite being in a very Tory/Lib Dem region, Labour have held on to Exeter for so long. Not because Ben Bradshaw is Labour but because of how Ben Bradshaw has conducted himself in the time he has been representing the people of Exeter. If only more of our politicians, irrespective of which party and what their politics are, when about being an MP like that.