Spoilt for choice?

The continuing row over the abuse of MP's expenses has at least injected a little interest into the Euro elections, normally a democratic procedure only marginally more entertaining than watching paint dry. There is much talk of the electorate "punishing" the major parties by voting for one of the number of small parties. If that is the case I just hope that these voters can make more sense of the bewildering selection of fringe parties laying out their wares for inspection than I can. There is certainly no shortage of choice.

I have now lost track of the number of anti-EU groups who are non the less gung-ho for the project when it comes to getting elected to the European Parliament. If homophobia and concerns about the hereafter are your bag you need look no further than the Christian Party. Some people are even talking about voting for the Socialist Party of Great Britain. I can only recall having known at all well two members of the SPGB; a middle aged couple who owned a bar in Palma, Majorca during the final years of the Franco regime. Lovely people but totally out of touch with politics outside of their SPGB bubble. I fear that little has changed.

The BNP are getting far more publicity than they deserve with much talk about the white working class flocking to vote for this bunch of morons due to having been "let down by the Labour Party". The BNP might be a pretty distasteful bunch but equally distasteful to my mind is the patronizing assumption that working class people are empty vessels that can be filled up with any old rubbish and that just beneath the surface of each of us is a racist cretin waiting to get out at the first hint of hard times.

 I don't know what to make of the Green Party. They seem so keen to stand apart from the left/right  dichotomy that they have achieved the impossible and become an apolitical political party. There are some good people in the Greens and some good intentions, but reading their manifesto it is difficult to see what kind of society they want other than it being in some way more fair, powered by renewable energy and fed on organically grown veg.

I don't know. It might just have to be None Of The Above.