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Vote early and often

Dear Subcomandauntie, I'm campaigning for a principled anti-war candidate in a marginal seat against a prominent pro-war Blairite. The contest is going to be very, very close, with just a handful of votes likely to decide the winner. However, the enemy is definitely cheating the postal vote system and fighting a very dirty campaign, and we are probably going to lose. Depressed at the thought of these "dogs of war" getting back in, I now have to engage in a little postal vote fraud myself to even up the score, but, predictably, I'm having a last-minute moral dilemma. Auntie, what should I do? Not George Galloway
May 2005


Dear "Not George Galloway",

Gorgeous, are you out of your tiny, shiny-suited, Mercedes-driven mind? Using such a spiteful Ba'athist manoeuvre to debase hundreds of years of parliamentary democracy, shaft the Chartists, stick two fingers up to Churchill, and desecrate the Pankhursts' shrine...

Why on earth is this a moral dilemma? Over the centuries, millions of people have fought and died for the right to vote in free elections and live in a democracy. Unfortunately, we still don't have such things. Only 24 per cent of the electorate voted for New Labour in 2001, but they had virtual carte blanche to do what they wanted.

Two million in Britain got off their arses to say no to war but it didn't stop one bomb. Antisocial behaviour orders, control orders, tuition fees, privatisation, rising inequality, anti-immigration, the list goes on and on. So don't think about this a moment longer. Auntie subcommands you to go forth and multiply those votes by any means necessary - stuff envelopes with dodgy ballot papers, bribe the tellers, hold old grannies at gunpoint, whatever it takes, just beat those Blairites. That's right, comrades, the revolution will be falsified.


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