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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

It is very odd. However, more volatility is one of the features of modern politics. People are starting to vote in different ways for different elections. One of the ways in which we in the political establishment try to get round that is by trying to ram everything on to the same day in the hope that there will be a sort of party list and that everybody will turn out to tick the correct box for each election. Things would also be easier for our activists. We all know how difficult it is to wind up our activists for a European election, particularly when it is done on regional lists; one feels rather lost in a constituency of 3 million or 4 million. The political establishment rather like to run things together in the hope that they can keep party discipline, but the reality is that the electorate out there prefer to make their different choices, whether they do so for Ipswich or Suffolk, for who they want to represent them in the European Parliament, or for which Government they want. We have seen a greater spread of votes in that respect over recent years. I therefore generally deprecate running elections on the same day.