It’s been a busy couple of weeks here.
Vast amounts of decorating have been going on but now this latest phase of getting the house presentable for eventual sale later this year is over, I’m now on holiday and the coast is relatively clear.
Apart from the decorating, I’ve also been spending quite a lot of time posting to and reading the Facebook group set up to oppose Doncaster’s new mayor, Peter Davies.
It’s been an interesting experience to say the least.
Inevitably, you get visitors from the English Democrats Party – as I’ve detailed elsewhere – and whilst some are prepared to participate in debate, others just come on and rant in a most unpleasant and counter-productive manner.
And these rants aren’t just coming from rank and file supporters, but from prospective European and UK parliamentary candidates.
Now, far be it from me to tell anyone how to run a political party, but what I can say – having observed how parties have presented themselves to the electorate over four decades of being eligible to vote – is that no-one ever got votes by calling voters idiots.
Such indiscretions can’t be undone, either.
We live in an age when information and data can be preserved for everyone to see at anytime, in spite of people’s best efforts to conceal it.
Once you say something like the following, you’re stuck with it:
Hello again pc loonies. Are you STILL caterwauling. Did none of you bother to answer my questions about what gives YOU the right to an opinion on somebody who is not even two weeks into his job?
You’re just not representative of normal people these days. Most NORMAL people think you would have been consigned to an asylum years ago.
And this person wants your vote?
Now, however, it seems that one or two people in the EDP are starting to ‘get it’.
What’s said now on this here interweb thing can come back to haunt you later on down the line – and will, as long as people have a yen to report news for those willing to read it whether it’s in the MSM or the blogosphere.
That’s why you rarely get such behaviour displayed by the vast majority of political parties.
They’re wise to it.
And it’s hardly political rocket science, is it?
Similarly a few people in the EDP seem to have twigged that if you allow racist comments to remain on your Facebook page then this will do a party which claims not to be racist no favours whatsoever.
A few even seem to be saying that abusing people who disagree with you is perhaps not the best approach and that reasoned argument might be more productive.
Another EDP ‘debating’ tactic is to brand everyone who disagrees with them a ‘loony lefty’.
Well, some critics might well be coming from the left but not all – and certainly not this blogger.
Such labeling is simplistic and just a plain lazy debating tactic.
It’s far easier to lump your opponents together into one homogenous group rather than deal with several different opposing viewpoints.
It’s also inefficient as you’re not going to address all your opponents – only the ones you have targeted.
My criticism of the EDP can be summed up very easily and it has nothing to do with any particular political stance on my part.
I disapprove of the way Peter Davies was voted in as Mayor after standing on a platform of promises he hadn’t checked were able to be kept and I dislike some of the ways in which the EDP present themselves badly and then go on to attack criticism of this public image that they themselves have manufactured in ways which have never been and never will be acceptable from a politician of any party.
I’ve never known anything like it emanating from any political party which took itself even remotely seriously.
I’d have the same criticisms no matter what the party was.
It’s not everyone, but I get the distinct impression that certain prominent figures in the EDP are far more concerned with getting support in quantity rather than quality and that some have very few scruples as to how they do it.
Does this mean that the party is fatally ‘holed beneath the waterline’?
Well, some think so.
In my opinion, the EDP may be salvageable as a credible political party if it starts to behave like one and treat the electorate and also its critics with respect and also ensures that all racist references are removed from public forums such as the EDP’s Facebook group.
How do you take this sort of public statement seriously?
You are all pathetic whingers with no foundation in reality and you are running around like headless chickens because YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED AND YOU KNOW IT. Oh but it won’t be like you think it is. You will all be choking on your words and feeling utterly stupid when you realise just what it is you are criticising.
It’s a question the EDP should be asking itself if it wants to gain credibility.
Filed under: Current affairs, politics | Tagged: EDP, facebook, Peter Davies | 7 Comments »
Hundreds and Thousands (on the trifle of life) 