Why Vote Labour and/or for Andy Reed
I will be setting out my thoughts on this page why I believe voting Labour is the right choice in 2010.
Why Andy?
At the election in Loughborough there is a claer choice between the candidates. As you will see from the I'm Backing Andy Reed pages there are lots of reasons to vote for Andy and his proud record as our local MP.
As voters keep telling us Andy is a principled politician who says what he htinks and does his best for his home town and villages.
Because he lives here with his family and was brought up in local schools and the local community he knows how we tick and what works.
He has not changed as a person since becoming an MP. He still plays rugby at the same club as he did 25 years ago and attends a local church as well as helping out with various local charities and things like Scouts.
Character is important. He is friendly and approachable. He has a passion for speaking for the poorest and for speaking up for the constituency.
He also has great experience and is actually prettty good at the job too.
Andy has never toued the country looking for a seat so that he could become an MP. In fact he never set out to be an MP. In Westminster this down to earth local lad made good approach is becoming all too rare. Like the Tory candidate there are too many career politicians who will travel anywhere to find a seat just so they can become MPs.
Ideology and the Right Direction for Britain
Fundamentally I believe voting for a political party is not about a shopping list of policies about what can be done for you as an individual but which political party has the right philosophy and intellectual capacity to move the country in the direction I would like to see it go.
You see I despise all that the Tories stand for - regardless of how they dress up their policies.
However, I recognise not everybody holds such deep moral conviction about a just and fair society based on mutual respect. So people will look more at the detailed areas of policies and I will try to set the out here.
If like me though you are instinctively Labour/socialist/democratic socialist/progressive I would urge you to vote Labour even if you have reservations. Even when you may disagree with individual policies (as I have and spoken out against them) it is far better to have a Labour Party committed to the goals of tackling poverty and injustice than 1 day of a Tory Party who sneer at these ideals!