Wednesday, April 30, 2008

London Mayoral elections...

...IMPORTANT!!!!

I will be voting for the Christian Choice candidate, Alan Craig, with my first vote, and suggest that readers of this Blog do the same. We have two votes, so the second can go to another candidate.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on wasting your vote.

Archbishop Cranmer said...

His Grace would never direct anyone in their voting intentions, but he is puzzled by this decision.

Alan Craig may be an upright and honourable Christian, but it is incumbent upon believers in a democracy to limit sin by voting for the lesser evil, and then seeking to influence policy by active participation in the political process. There is no end to the fracturing of society in the process of voting for people because they are one's co-religionists: the Muslims vote for the Muslim candidate, the Sikhs vote for the Sikh, and so on, and one then loses the concept of a unifying political philosophy because divisive theology becomes pre-eminent.

Mr Craig's religious background should be irrelevant to the decision to vote for him, not least because most Muslims would agree with him on just about every moral issue. His Grace might add that much of what Mr Craig might stand for personally (anti-abortion, pro-family, etc) is irrelevant to his functioning as mayor, for such issues do not fall under the mayor's aegis.

Peripheral parties can only carp from the sidelines. But if Christians were to engage with a mainstream party en masse, as they do, for good or ill, in the USA, there is indeed hope for change.

Unknown said...

We are in the process of adopting what is being termed "instant runoff voting" for local elections here in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lawsuits are being filed, left and right, so it may be some years before a final decision is made.

But many of us are intrigued by the possibility.

And, I read "Cranmer's" thoughts on the subject carefully and will copy them to a file.

But many excellent potential candidates refuse to file for an election because of the strength of the two major political parties in our state.

Occasionally a "third party" candidate will file and may even win with something like 40% of the total vote. That was the case with "Jesse 'the Body' Ventura", a professional wrestler, who became governor of our state some years ago.

He wasn't an awful governor and made some very good judicial and administrative appointments because he was smart enough to realize that he needed help.

But he got his highest priority passed and that was all he really wanted: a major reduction in the price of his annual motor vehicle license for his Porsche!

But that's not a good way to run a government.

Maybe "instant runoff voting" will give us a better quality of candidates.

Anonymous said...

It's now neither here nor there as the election is over, but to waste a vote on Craig when London faces many serious problems is frivolous and blinkered. I can only assume that you have been unduly influenced by that twit, the Pope of Black Fen. Craig would not have the first idea of how to run London.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't the transfer mean that the vote isn't wasted?
However I tend to agree. Effective influence over the political process is exerted by joining one of the major parties, rather than by trying to form a small minority party. Pressure groups are rather different.