There is Nothing new under the sun

Our local borough council elections came and went with barely a trace of evidence to show that they had  taken place.  True, a few LibDems were pushed out of bed (so to speak - or off the council bench) but essentially, nothing much changed.
Nationally , TV stations burned the midnight oil (and beyond) in a vain attempt to whip up artificial enthuasiasm for the pantomime.  I concluded that the politicians and aspiring councillors had failed along with the media's talking heads and I just couldn't stay up to watch the results as they became available.  Truly, it was like watching paint dry.
I had hoped to be involved in some way.  I voted, which is, I suppose, evidence of involvement.  But it wasn't enough.  I wanted to be involved with a candidate and do my bit to get him or her elected. But who should I support?
I mentally dismissed the Conservative, Labour and LibDem candidates.  In my heart of hearts I wanted to vote for a person, not a party and I couldn't bring myself to vote for a party that won't permit me to vote in a referendum on EU.  So who else is there?
I looked in vain for a UKIP candidate. I spoke to him by phone and to the local UKIP Branch chairman, and UKIP branch membership secretary.  None of my approaches was enough to attract a UKIP leaflet to my door nor a UKIP candidate to my door bell. But in fairness, I was invited during my phone conversations to join their party.  The UKIP candidate remained invisible and unheard, and I could trace no evidence that he had consigned his ideas or those of his party to paper.  So he was unread, too.  Not surprising, then, that he polled around 93 votes in my ward and not one of them was mine.
The one candidate who did knock on my door was an Independent.  He came round one Sunday morning and knocked, and when I opend the door he handed me his leaflet. Naturally, we exchanged a few comments - and then he was on his way again.  Lotsa doors to knock on when you are a lonely independent.
Which brings me to the point of this particular muse.
Have we really got to a stage whereby a spokesperson at the head of a political party is all that is needed to draw Joe Public to a ballot box? The evidence suggests we haven't got to that stage but the party people don't know it. That form of political ownership is dying; not dead yet but going that way.
Years ago when I was still carving my niche in the world I sat in front of a lecturer on sales success. He told us, and I've never forgotten it, 'People buy people first and later whatever it is they are selling,' he said.  It's as true now as it was then.

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