There's only a couple of days to go before a mix of local, mayoral and regional assembly elections take place and despite some political activists reaching for their keyboards to plead for their various causes it seems that outside the political activists closed cloisters and social media the majority of us remain nonplussed.
It's hardly surprising with everyone having been bottled up for the best part of the year it's the re-opening of pubs and of course shops that excite people more. Soon I'll be able to join my fellow pensioners and friends for a cup of coffee and a cake in Neros. Can't wait.
Oh but before then I'm supposed to vote but the candidates haven't exactly made much of an effort to get mine. Since the campaign began there have been just two leaflets through the door one back in April from the other dangerous Corbyn, Piers inviting me to march against the Covid fraud. Wanker.
Other than that only the Tory candidate for Mayor has bothered dropping a leaflet through our doormat. Given I live on an inner city council estate the lack of any sign of Labour worries me. For the first time since Corbyn and his mates took over the party Keir Starmer has begun to win me back though not my partner. She's still not impressed.
I don't think Sadiq Khan has been a good mayor, far from it but for wider political reasons including the continuing power struggle inside Labour will be voting for him and the Labour list. The need to reclaim Labour is a priority since it seems it's proved impossible to build an alternative. Reclaiming Labour for Social Democracy has to be the most realistic way forward.
However despite polls indicating a resurgence of the Labour vote the by-election in Hartlepool looks more than seemingly lost and when it is the hard or farleft elements that prey on Labour will be baying for blood, Ash Sakar was already at it on Twitter today and The Daily Mail reported on Saturday:
Ms Murphy – a close ally of Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey, said: 'I have got my ear to the ground – I hear that the big trade unions, the Left trade unions, are organising.'
She also issued a thinly veiled threat that if he was not true to Mr Corbyn's socialist principles, Sir Keir would not last long as leader.
Meanwhile Corbyn's backers outside of Labour in the form of the Communist Party and the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (Militant and the RMT plus Chris Williamson's mob) have joined the ridiculous outfit The Northern Independence Party in trying to undermine Labour's vote as best they can thereby helping tthe Tories these people claim want rid.
In Hartlepool Thelma Walker NIP's candidate is attracting 6% of the vote according to a recent Surmation Poll. The Tories seem to be on course to win despite the apparent sleaze. Why? One Labour activist mused on Facebook that he found people hostile to the Tories but equally so to Labour because of the Corbyn legacy. Labour remains untrusted.
Keir Starmer is an intelligent and able individual but does not have the gravitas that so may politicians in this modern age also seem to lack. There is still a long way to go before the next general election and the big issue before then I will be Scottish independence. The Union is threatened and whilst the SNP clearly misleads the Scottish electorate on the economic outcome of a breakaway, the unionist parties have a difficult job ahead.
Thursday night will throw up some interesting results. I'll be looking at the fringes in subsequent posts plus the reactions of those shouting for a return to the hard-line nonsense that defeated Corbyn last time.
I will be voting Labour but remain sceptical about the party's future unless it makes the real changes needed to dump the recalcitrant leftists and move closer to being a modern party for a modern world.
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