Why haven’t I had a polling card for the forthcoming referendum on the Alternative Vote system? As leader of the Pet Dogs’ Democratic Party I should certainly have a say in how we are elected. This is a very important issue to us. As a minority party, we are far more likely to have members of Parliament if we can have some form of proportional representation, rather than the current iniquitous first past the post system. This is not the 100 metres, where you are simply trying to find who is the fastest. This is about putting together five years of government for our country. That government should be representative of the wishes of the people. It is all very well people complaining about our current government and saying we need a system that gives us strong leadership instead of coalition, but they should realise that the current coalition is bringing some balance and stability. If we were simply following the more uncontrolled policies of the Conservative Party, the cuts would be deeper, the taxes higher and complaints louder. Having a coalition is making sure that the needs of all sectors of society are being heard, except of course dogs as we still aren’t represented.
Have you stopped to think how much calmer debate might be in the House of Commons with more than just David Blunkett’s dog in attendance? Obviously the dogs that were elected would need to be well trained and not settle their differences by fighting, but you can see how we could get round the other parties. We would nuzzle up to them when they were stressed and let them stroke us, to calm down. You just see if we can’t get our own way after that. It is an approach that is definitely lacking at present. In many ways, I think the women MP’s are still missing a trick by not playing on their femininity to get the men to agree to anything they want. You can see it now, a few hundred helpless men, putty in their hands.