A Shoe In

‘“SARAH! Sar-rah…” The sing-song school ma’am voice calls across the road to Sarah Teather, the LibDem’s diminutive MP for Brent East.

Sarah moves like a red squirrel about to have her nut taken by one of those bigger grey ones. The nut, or voter, as he must be properly addressed, is Ed Barrett, Anorak writer and owner of a “P Nut”, a nut wrapped in a Crystal Palace scarf and hat.

Ed wants to know if Sarah is local. These are the local elections and being local is central to the theme. “How local are you?” asks Ed. Sarah says she is very local. She was born in North London. Ed wants to know where. Be precise.

Sarah realises that being local is important to this voter. It is. It should be important to us all. It’s all very well David Cameron nipping off to Norway, but how does watching ice melt safeguard services at Willesden Green Post Office?

Good that LibDem leader Menzies Campbell has decided sell his Jaguar, save the planet and use his bus pass, but what does that mean for Brent East?

Sarah eventually moves away. She has canvassing to do. But Ed soon spots her again.

As he writes: “The small but perfectly formed Lib Dem MP for Willesden is exactly the same height as a post box. I know because as I was coming out of the Sainsbury’s car park, she walked in front of the car. I watched her cross the road and walk next to a post box. Her head was exactly level with the top. I didn’t check how high her heels were, though.”

Ed has been despatched to complete this glaring omission in his report. And while we await his heel update, we urge you to discover how local your prospective councillors are.

Do write in and share your discoveries with us. And don’t forget to mention the shoes…’

Posted: 25th, April 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink