Political Penguin

For those of you who might be passing through the centre of Willenhall, you might notice this on the main island.

For those who might be mistaken, there isn’t an election going on in the Willenhall South ward at the moment and the poster in question is purely a leftover of which there are a few dotted around the ward from this years local elections.
Now anyone who’s been involved in organising elections, particularly in Walsall, will know that the council tend to be a bit hot on getting parties to take their posters down within a fortnight after polling day – with the threat of fines if you don’t.
However, in reality do they really enforce these rules? It would seem not, and to give another example; following the by-election that was held in our ward in 2005, the BNP posters were still up in the Fibbersley area during this years campaign. I’ll admit to having not frequented that area for a fair few months, but they may even still be there.
Now I said in my first post that I wouldn’t get into outright Tory or LibDem bashing purely for the fun of it, so here’s the point.
Every year, political parties of all colours spend a disproportionate amount of time cutting boards, pasting boards, sticking them up on lampposts and taking them down again. I am yet to see of what value this is to the democratic process in our country. I know activists who like them, think it’s traditional or simply looks good during election time. I can only think of one valid argument in favour of posters on lampposts – that they make people aware there’s an election on. That’s a lot of time, money and planetary resources wasted to tell people what I would hope in a functioning democracy they should already know. Equally, they’ll be plenty of leaflets and other bits of literature pushed through peoples letterboxes informing them of the fact there’s an election on anyway.
After many years of being stuck up a ladder, I’ll admit that I tend not to do it anymore. Not because I’m lazy, but that I think my time is better spent actually talking to people on doorsteps. Something that seems to be a dying art, at least in Walsall anyway. I’m not per se against posters, there’s a real lift you get when you see them in people’s windows at election times, knowing that the residents of that household are backing you. I’ll sign-off on this comment that someone once said to me on the issue: ‘People vote, not lampposts’.