Rick's b.log - 2022/04/17
It is the 18th of December 2024 You are 3.137.179.203, pleased to meet you!

Dear France

Please, I implore you, if you are a leftie who voted Mélenchon, Green, Communist, etc - please go and vote for Macron. You don't have to like him, you just have to like Le Pen in charge less.

I know, I know, you don't want to hear from some dickwad "anglais". But trust me, I have experience with a few pertinant things:

• Just because the polling predicts Macron will win with a 10% margin, doesn't mean it will happen.
• Abstaining from voting is not a good idea, because if a moderate vote is not counted (or valid), then that gives strength to the votes for Le Pen.
• You can guarantee that Le Pen will mobilise everybody she can. Given that her leadership will basically end everything that is good about France, everybody else ought to mobilise against her.
• You might be sick to the hind teeth about politics, and not care as neither of the candidates do anything for you. But, regardless of your feelings, this election is going to happen and you'll have to live with the consequences, whether you voted or not. So you might as well be heard.

What am I talking about? Brexit, of course. A vote that was so insanely close, and a massive change to an entire country carried by about a quarter of the population, or a third of the electorate.

I'm not going to tell you all the reasons Le Pen's leadership would be a disaster, the world's media has already written very many paragraphs about this.

But I do wish to point out her desire to forge closer ties to Russia. After the current unwarranted war, massacre of children, and rape-as-a-weapon, of course. How is this supposed to go? Forgive and forget? Or will Putin be laughing as finally something goes right in his master plan to break the West?

Don't just assume Macron will win. Make your vote count and ensure it.

Easter Full Moon

Easter full moon.

How I spent Easter Sunday

Nice and tidy out front.

Then, enjoying the hammock.

Hammock time.

Your comments:

David Pilling, 17th April 2022, 23:04

I read that France has a golden future - lots of agriculture in a time of shortages and increasing prices. Lots of sunshine for solar power. They have turned the Euro to their advantage.

VinceH, 18th April 2022, 00:28

"You don't have to like him, you just have to like Le Pen in charge less."    We have a similar issue here with Labour. I'm seeing a worrying number of their voters who are what I can only describe as 'hardcore' Corbyn fans saying they won't vote for Labour under Starmer, and won't vote strategically if another party is the best option in their constituency.    This stupidity risks Nazi... sorry... *Nasty* party gains in the council elections next month, and another majority in the next general election, which should be in 2024. These idiots - like Brexit voters before them - want to shoot themselves and everyone else in the foot because Corbyn isn't Labour leader. :(    FWIW, I don't like Corbyn at all, yet still voted Labour in the last couple of GEs with him as leader - that was the best way to vote where I am. I don't like Starmer either[1], but Labour remains the most tactical vote for me, so they'll get my vote again. (It helps that my local Labour candidate was and continues to be a good choice.)    [1] I thought he was okay at first, but my opinion of him has diminished over time.

Rick, 18th April 2022, 05:58

I think I might have mentioned during the last elections, that I'm a LibDem. I despise Labour, and absolutely hated Corbyn, to the point where I feel the party should be disbanded for essentially failing the country at a time when strong leadership in opposition was critical.    But I'd have voted Labour. Because I know full well the LibDems are going nowhere, and I'd rather have a complete clown (Corbyn) in charge than any Tory.    What I don't understand is how the Cult of Boris is repeatedly getting working class voters to vote against their better interests by voting Tory.    That being said, getting rid of Johnson will not change anything. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that something is really broken about the mentality of the country as a whole nowadays.

J.G.Harston, 24th April 2022, 01:03

In toddling around putting out my local election leaflet, I've been impressed by the number of people who mention they're not voting for "that bunch of ****ers". The County Council here is as blue as a blue thing, and is likely to remain so, but in the towns there are pockets of opposition. We even have the old Liberal Party around here - at one point they had more councillors than the LibDems!    Now, I've just got to re-do all those envelopes I've stuffed upside down. :(

J.G.Harston, 24th April 2022, 01:28

On the subject of my election leaflet, the current one is a mailmerged letter.    I wanted to have a single letter per household, something like:  Fred and Mary Smith  etc.  Dear Fred and Mary  etc.    I spent about five hours trying to get The Party's candidate database thingy to do this, or to export data to do this. It would either give me one letter per person, or one letter to the first person in a household, or one letter to all members, but the address mangled:  Fred and Mary Smith  123 Acacia Crescent  several blank lines  Whitby  POSTCODE    Grrrg.  I then thought SOD IT!, just exported the raw data, threw together a bit of BBC BASIC code, and in ten minutes the job was done.

Rick, 24th April 2022, 02:08

And this ☝️ ladies and gentlemen, is why it is useful to know how to program.