The Election Blog, Part One

eaststrikewest start their General Election blog for Rock Sound!

Posted Thursday, 15 April 2010 by eaststrikewest in

Blog

Did you think politics was exclusively the preserve of punk rock bands and the back of Chris Martin’s hand? Well you would be wrong. We are eaststrikewest, and you are not. Over the next few weeks we’ll be contributing a blog to this very website about the upcoming General Election in the UK.

For many of you it will be the first time you’ve had the opportunity to vote, and a lot has changed since the last General Election. Should you bother? What difference does it make? The answers are yes and a massive difference. Did you know in 2005, when the last election was held, only 60% of people able to vote actually bothered to visit a polling station and vote? Ridiculous isn’t it? At the age of 18 so many opportunities become available, like drinking alcohol legally, smoking cigarettes and deciding how your country is run!

It is a big deal, and if you vote can, you should. It affects your everyday life so much; it’d be silly not to use it. Whether you’re in further education, work or on the dole it’ll make a difference to you. It’s about hospitals, the pavements you walk on and even what you decide to view or download on the internet! It’s that big a deal!

But let’s step back for moment...Who are eaststrikewest and why should we even bother reading this column? We are not an overtly political band, very few are these days, and chances are some readers of this site will think we’re middle of the road. We aren’t a shouty screamy type of band, but by the same token we’re not some kind of wishy washy indie band who tries to please everyone. We’re heavyweight, but you can still shake your rump to us y’know?

Collectively we’ve decided to contribute a periodical viewpoint, a real democracy if you will, so you won’t be bombarded with our drummer Ian’s ideas. We live on the outskirts of East London or Essex (depending on who you ask) and the primary concern for us locally is to keep the BNP out of a parliamentary seat. They do well in the more deprived boroughs, and Barking and Dagenham is one of the poorest. So much so, the BNP leader Nick Griffin sees it as such a good shout that he’s standing for the seat in Barking! The best advice you’ll ever learn is not to shit on your own doorstep, so we’ll be giving you the low down of where we’re at locally.

We’ll also be contributing our thoughts every now and again on a national scale as to how the leaders and their manifestos are performing, how they may affect you, and anything else we think might be of interest. So far we have plans for drinking games, fun links, and a significant amount of reader feedback.

So check this page frequently, and come join this political party!

Cheers