WHY I'M VOTING NO

I've been schizophrenic about my vote on the AV referendum. Electoral reform is a good move but when I look at those saying yes like Alan Johnson (shudder) and Nick Clegg (vomit) I wonder whether voting with my heart rather than my head is a good idea after all.

Then I look at those who I coouldn't disagree with more on all sorts of issues like Diane Abbott, Caroline Flint, or David Cameron who are urging a no vote and I'm swinging back towards yes again.

Cleggie was right when he said AV was "a miserable little compromise" and I think he should be ashamed that he's let his party become Tory underdogs. When offered the titbit of AV he grabbed it rather than hold out for something better like PR - the only fair solution to our unfair voting system.

If we vote yes on may 5 then we'll be stuck with it. We won't do it again so I'm rather persuaded by the devil you know rather than the devil you don't argument.

Others are saying no because of the cost and I agree with that too. Actually it's obscene that Cameron has allowed this folly to happen when he's cutting back on services further than a neighbour with conifer trees under a court order.

It's not that I don't want electoral reform but we should have been offered PR and Clegg should have fought for that or not bothered at all. Cameron shouldn't be wasting our time or our money on keeping Cleggie off his back.

Take it back

From my earliest pubgoing days, I was always brought up to take my glass back to the bar after I had finished my pint. It’s basic good manners really, and you only don’t if there’s a crush at the bar or if you want to make a point about sub-standard beer. So it often dismays me when I see people on CAMRA pub crawls leave their cluster of empty half-pints on the tables. Isn’t this likely to add to the image of CAMRA as a bunch of patronising beer snobs who only condescend to visit someone’s local pub once a year and then leave their glasses for the skivvy to clear up?

Yet one member - of my sort of age - said that he had never come across the idea of taking your glass back until he had joined CAMRA. Did they not believe in manners where he was brought up, I wonder?

ABANDONED!

I've given up waiting for the response from the tobacco company Imperial and I'm fed up of giving them the benefit of the doubt. I've always said the industry is not our friend but it is not our enemy unlike the anti-smoker industry. I was wrong.

They have abandoned us, the antis have won, the tobacco companies have let them. Choice is consigned to history for those of us who want the natural product and not some man made alternative. I guess growing our own tobacco is the only way forward for those of us lifelong smokers who enjoy the old fashioned way of smoking.

When I did speak to Imperial, their representative banged on about how they were trying to get a smoking shelter. Wow! (not) and they were watching the Philip Morris I deserve to be heard campaign but seem to be doing nothing more than that. Whatever the tobacco companies are doing for us to stop this hateful persecution, they doing it through Forest. I won't criticise Forest because it is our only friend and our only hope. However Government doesn't listen to Forest anymore - because it hates smokers and will purge us from society by any means and it looks like Big T will help them.

I believe our only hope of getting Govt to sit up and take notice is to shift our support to UKIP. Sadly, too many who say they care about this issue and it really does matter prefer to vote Tory for fear of getting Labour back. I think they deserve all they get but we don't.

I have been really busy as the local election gets nearer but as I'm relatively skint, election leaflets and time to deliver them is something I don't have. We have a local paper here that tends not to give us coverage but I am confident that UKIP is winning broader support even though the academics still don't get what UKIP is about and are just looking for a new political "villain" with the demise of the BNP.

Even arrogant Labour is beginning to see UKIP as a threat. What did they expect when they turned their back on their core support and ignored them thinking we would have no where else to go?

I've found somewhere and so have many others. I'm still beating back "UKIP is racist" allegations from far left socialists but then I've come to the conclusion that they are just a different set of bigots who brand anyone that doesn't agree with them.