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The Barrie Hudson Column
Barrie Hudson is a known quantity when it comes to writing words. Sometimes he even spells them correctly. In fact he has been writing words in the Swindon area for more than two decades. First of all for the Swindon Advertiser and then for Swindon Link and now for The Ink. Here are some of his words…
‘Why Bother?’ has yet again roundly trounced all other candidates at the polling stations. What could be be the secret of its success?
The recent elections for councils, mayors and police and crime commissioners were another overwhelming victory for what is without doubt the most successful political movement of modern times.
Yet again, every other candidate was comprehensively routed by ‘Why Bother?’
Admittedly some of the mainstream political parties managed to outdistance one another, and sometimes by significant margins, but ‘Why Bother?’ thoroughly humbled and shamed them all. In just about every council ward, every police and crime commissioner area and every other arena of electoral contention, the second day of May will go down in history as merely another ‘Why Bother?’ triumph.
In Swindon alone, only 31 percent of the electorate supported other candidates including Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, The Green Party, The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and independents, and ‘Why Bother?’ beat all of them put together by a factor of more than two-to-one.
Of every hundred people entitled to vote in an election in the Borough of Swindon, ‘Why Bother?’ secured the support of 69.
In the Wiltshire and Swindon Police and Crime Commissioner elections, ‘Why Bother?’ delivered an even more impressive performance at the ballot box. Admittedly in the Swindon local authority area the other candidates collectively secured slightly more of the vote than in the council elections, with 31.25 percent deciding that ‘Why Bother?’ was not for them, but this still meant - by my calculations at least - that of every 10,000 people in the Swindon local authority area entitled to vote in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, 6,875 decided that ‘Why Bother?’ was the candidate for them.
In the rest of Wiltshire, the performance of ‘Why Bother?’ on the day was even more impressive, with 19.02 percent opting for other candidates and leaving ‘Why Bother?’ - again by my calculations - with 8,098 supporters among every 10,000 entitled to vote.
The sheer scale of the success enjoyed by ‘Why Bother?’ throughout the country in recent years, which has seen it dominate not just every local election but outstrip the number of votes for other candidates in just about every General Election, by-election and referendum, is a matter for political analysts in our most prestigious universities.
Of course, not every voter who backed ‘Why Bother?’ can truly be said to be an active ‘Why Bother?’ supporter. Some, as I have pointed out elsewhere, will have had no option but to support ‘Why Bother?’ because of personal circumstances. Being unable to get the necessary time off work while juggling pressing family commitments, for example, and choosing ‘Why Bother?’ only because the alternative might involve losing their livelihood and plunging themselves and everybody they love into abject poverty and possibly homelessness.