I thought it was probably about time that I announced my intention to officially enter politics and stand as a Parliamentary Party Candidate. I am one of UKIP's 500 that it is putting up to fight the next general election. Ideally, I wanted to stand in my own city, Lincoln, but we have an excellent candidate here, Nick Smith, who is known locally and I so chose Louth and Horncastle, an area I know quite well having covered the magistrates court there for some years before it closed. My other half's family on his mother's side also originates from Horncastle and they still have strong ties there.
Our day in Louth's Market Square was to spread the word about voting choice, promote UKIP and it's policies and to introduce me to any local people who happened by our stall and wanted to stop for a political chat.
There were many disaffected old Labour supporters and traditional Tory supporters all looking at where they could put their vote next time having vowed never to vote for their parties again. The blanket smoking ban, my own personal bug-bear, came up twice. During a discussion of why 52 pubs are closing nationally every week, one lady said she liked the ban. However, after I explained that choice would not affect people who don't like smoke, it would just enable those smoker pubs - the ones currently dying in their droves - to contnue to trade as they had always had done, she agreed that it wasn't really a big issue for her.
A couple later approached. The man only wanted to know what my view was on the ban. I took a deep breath and let him have it. His face lit up, and he said I'd get his vote. He went further and signed the UKIP call for a referendum which is now about our membership of the EU and not the Lisbon Treaty which is past all hope. I suspected that the man was a pro-choicer as he felt so strongly against the ban but he wasn't. He'd never heard of F2C, Forest, or any group currently working to fight for choice and democracy on the smoking issue. I found that encouraging. I gave him some links in case he wanted to get involved or know more.
His partner was a teacher. She was fed up with the education system which she says currently encourages disrespect for both teachers and parents. We both agreed the National Curriculum was at fault for the state of today's youth. Kids are not uniformed beings who all fit into neat little boxes of the same size. Some of them are square pegs trying to fit into round holes and when they don't, the system chucks them out, they end up feral and before long causing trouble on the streets. She pledged support for UKIP when I told her that the party supported individuality in education and would make home education easier for those parents who wanted to choose it.
I was also asked about my view of the postal stike. Deep breath again as I explained as an old labour supporter, I would always take the side of the working man or woman if their cause was just. The man who asked promply signed the UKIP pledge and so I assume I gave the right answer.
One sight deeply distrubed me. Standing just a few feet away, outside a shop, were three childen. The eldest was about 14. The other two boys about 8 and 10. They were all smoking roll-ups with filters in. People stood looking in amazement and I fear the boys lapped up the attention. Two old ladies remonstrated with them but this had no effect. The women moved on. I couldn't help myself but approach for a word.
I told the boys the reality of smoking. I said I'd been a child smoker and that all I'd had from a lifetime of smoking was grief. I said smokers were excluded from every public place since the smoking ban - er... what smoking ban, they, said while furtively looking around in case PC Plod was about to cart them away - an explanation rather went over their heads so I tried a different approach.
I told them that smokers were despised so much that if they were still smoking at my age, the people now standing across the street watching them, would one day be throwing rocks at eggs at them for daring to light up in public. Again, it went over their heads and they weren't really interested. I could have given them the health spiel but then the old ladies did that and I'm sure that gets rammed down their throats as much as anyone else.
When I wrote my piece Life and Times of a Dedicated Smoker, I said that some children do smoke whether we like it or not. A tobacco display ban, the abolition of vending machines, and the prospect of plain packaging will do nothing to stop them. I sense a "get the parents" law being made any time soon. Certainly, I think, that if those boys had been smoking in Lincoln, which is littered with police on every street corner, then they would have been picked up, taken home, and criminal prosecutions either for the boy who gave the younger ones a cigarette, or the parents who failed to stop them smoking, would have followed.
Louth and Horncastle is a safe Tory seat and was formerly held by Jeffrey Archer. It's current MP is Sir Peter Tapsell and I'm told that I don't have much chance of winning but it's fight that I'm thoroughly going to enjoy.
