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12:14pm on Friday, 8th May, 2026:
Miscellaneous
It was the local elections yesterday, and I had two votes to cast: one for Colchester Council and one for Essex Council.
My policy is usually to vote for whichever party among those I least dislike is most likely to lose their deposit. As a result, this time, I decided to split my vote. The Greens got my Colchester vote and the Liberal Democrats got my Essex vote.
The only campaigning literature I received was from the Conservatives and Reform. The Conservatives were nervous, and going all out (by local election standards) to encourage people to vote for them; they even sent someone round knocking on doors to ask if we'd voted, and if so, how (my reply: "yes, secretly"). They needn't have worried: they polled 1,706 in our ward, with Reform on 956, winning comfortably.
I misjudged how I should have voted, as the Greens came third on 453; the Liberal Democrats were fourth on 366. None of the parties lost their deposit, though, not even Labour, trailing in last at 309.
As for the county council election, well as of mid-day, the counting is still in progress for my ward. However, Reform has won big elsewhere in Essex and the Greens have been out-performing the Liberal Democrats, so it looks as if I might have chosen well there.
When I was young, I didn't so much vote for any party as against them. Sadly, with age, I really want to vote against all of them, as they all have their faults. Some have more than others, though, so they're the ones that attract my vote. I don't buy the argument that one ordinary person can have no effect on the rest of the world (just ask the Chinese man who, in 2019, thought "mmm, that bat looks tasty"), but it really is quite dispiriting that no-one I vote for is ever elected.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).