The Boston Eye fule's guide to voting

As any fule kno, voting isn't a simple business, or Boston would not be in the thrall of the Bypass Independents.
So for those of you stuck in a quandary (which is like a quorum only if not enough people turn up you don't have to do it all over again at great expense to the council taxpayer) here are a few guidelines which you might find helpful.
Local elections: If you voted BBI last time, you made a mistake - but you probably know that already. Do not repeat it upon pain of the death of the town we hold so dear. If you voted Labour last time, you may be wondering whether the returning officer threw your voting paper in the waste bin when no-one was looking. If he did, it would have made no difference. If you voted Conservative last time, you may be thinking the same thing, but a few got through, and it still made no difference. If you voted Independent last time, you may wonder why several of your candidates got elected but it still does not appear to have made any difference. This is what Independents are for. If you voted for the Better Boston Group last time, you must have been drunk - because there wasn't one. There is now, but that largely because some of the BBI councillors were drunk at some point after the election. But again it doesn't matter because as far as the elections are concerned, there is no such thing as the Better Boston Group, so you can't vote for them even if you wanted to. Oops, we forgot the Lib Dems - but then so did everyone else.
County Council elections: If you voted Conservative last time, you installed the ruling group, which by and large doesn't appear to have made a bad fist of things. At least they increased council tax only by a small percentage, which is an improvement on the BBI, which claimed to have increased it by 0%, which is not only mathematically impossible but gives us cause for concern if they ever find the one million pounds they can't find, and which they promised to pursue with vigour some long and silent time since. If you voted Labour last time, then you've got a chance to make amends. Watch out if you plan to vote Independent for the county. There's some strange group that calls itself Lincolnshire Independents that wants to stuff everyone in its ganderbag, and already has a leadership structure in place to ensure that newly elected independents lose their independence almost as soon as they get it. Unsurprisingly this group is linked to the leader of the BBI, who is also keen on power for its own sake. See "local elections" for the Lib Dems, and ibid for the rats nest of other parties. Talking of the BBI there were no candidates at the last county elections, and we sincerely trust that there will be none after Thursday's vote as well. If you must vote BBI, avoid double acts, newcomers, gobby so-and-so's ... and anyone else not on that list.
European elections: Your guess is as good as ours. If there was one, we'd vote for the "Don't believe a word we say because we'll come up with whatever it takes to get elected and then deny that we ever said it" party (see local elections: If you voted BBI last time.....) Just shun the three main political parties at all costs to teach the thieving so-and-so's a lesson in the wake of the expenses scandal in a way that won't do any harm to the system.

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