Letter to the Hebden Bridge Times regarding Gordon Brown’s eventual decision not to hold a General Election, in response to Bernard Ingham’s column.
Dear Editor,
In his column last week headlined “Brown missed his chance to ‘walk it’ “, Bernard Ingham advised the PM “not to read the runes” in Hebden Royd as they “might mislead him”. But if readers were watching the BBC News on the eve of Brown’s clumsy climb down last weekend, they will have seen footage of Hebden Bridge – singled out by pollsters precisely because the Calder Valley constituency is seen as a telling barometer of the nation’s polling intentions.
Commenting on the recent dramatic swings in the polls, Sir Bernard went on to opine that “there is something inherently fragile in political opinion”. Might I suggest, in view of the shameless posturing of the two main party leaders during the run up to The General Election That Wasn’t, that what is really inherently fragile is once again our electoral system itself?
What we need is fixed terms for government at national not just at the local level and we the electorate should insist on this as part of a thorough overhaul of our unrepresentative and unfair political process. Only then can we hope to be spared in future from the instability, the unnecessary media speculation and the unseemly political antics of the past few weeks.
Yours faithfully,
Hilary Myers (Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Calder Valley)
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