Somerfield = crap, forthcoming election

Having been accused of writing about nothing but poker, and having been the result of well thought out, intellectual comments like "You are gay", I thought I'd alter the tone of this blog slightly and bitch about things other than poker. Although I will add that I grabbed another $7.50 for 16th in last Monday's freeroll...

Somerfield, not being one of the bigger supermarkets, is always overpriced. But what I don't understand is that their special offers fall into two categories. One is the normal offers, the other are "saver card deals". I never understood the latter for several reasons:

1) It's completely free to get a saver card, and it's just adding to their costs to produce them (and those new keyfob barcode things that you can use as well, which, incidentally, Tesco have sent to me, despite only registering for their online shopping and browsing).

2) The idea of getting people to sign up for one is so that they'll stupidly give out real addresses on the forms so they can send you junk mail and random coupons that might persuade you to buy stuff from them. But when was the last time anyone ever took up an offer that they received through junk mail?

3) Even if you don't have a saver card, it doesn't matter because every single till has one anyway which they swipe through so you get the offers anyway.

So why don't they just do away with this loyalty card bullshit and make all their goods cheaper?

Blair's called an election. Whoopee-do. Millions couldn't care. Because:

- The vast majority of people live in safe seats for one of the big two parties so their vote doesn't count
- The vast majority of people who live in a marginal constituency couldn't give a fuck anyway as all the main parties are just as bad as each other

Who am I likely to vote for? The last time, I voted in Macclesfield (rated, IIRC, the fifth safest Tory seat in the country at the time) and voted Lib Dem for some unknown reason - a mental aberration, I'd guess. This time, I may vote in Sheffield, but will have to do the research as to whether there's any chance (probably not) of Labour being ousted and whether UKIP are standing. They're my first choice of party and will vote in Sheffield if they're standing there. If not, I'll get a postal and vote in Macc if they're standing there. The only reason I vote for them is that they are primarily a single issue party and said issue is the one I find the most important. If I can't vote UKIP, I don't know. I'm hugely against party politics anyway, but I'll never vote Labour (as they've quite frankly done a shit job with respect to the issues I find important) and won't be voting Lib Dem either, as they'll sell our country to Brussels before Kennedy can get to the bar for a celebratory drink. Tories? Seem the best option. I like their immigration policies, views on travellers, seem to talk the most sense.

If you want people to care about politics, abolish the party system. Force candidates to stand on what they believe, not what their party tells them to do. People would be elected more on local issues, and what their local people want. You'd also get rid of the farcical system whereby Labour with its' big majority can pass whatever the hell it likes, even when the Lords repeatedly tell them to fuck off (see the hunting furore). With no party line to toe, MP's would vote on what they believe (and likely what their constituents believe due to the reformed electoral system) and we'd have government policy more accurately reflecting what the public want.

Of course, nobody in power would ever allow that to happen as that would be career suicide. I only hope that some day there's hundreds of Wyre Forest style people standing on local issues, enough to win a large number of seats to make the leading party's influence minimal unless they actually have to listen to and be influenced by normal people. The one thing that would be an absolute disaster is a hung Parliament, then Kennedy's europhiles might actually have a say in things.