karmadillo

I don’t have that much time in my life to pay overly much attention to the minutia of parliamentary affairs.

I try to keep up with news & general politics. We have BBC News on for a few hours a day, if I’m in the car I stick Radio 4 on, I check the BBC News website throughout the day for new stories, I at least try to read The Guardian website every day & I spend way too much time on social media and social networking sites, catching stories and articles from all directions! We almost always sit and watch BBC evening national & local news with our children at dinner time and talk about what’s going on in the world. Our 9 & 10 year olds understand the basics of how the country is run, can name the major political parties & their leaders and are beginning to grasp a little about what each stands for. They watch the news and they listen, they question, they contemplate & they learn.

I have always voted Labour. Except once. In a local election. When I was eighteen & determined to be different. I voted Green Party! I don’t vote for Labour because I’m a dyed in the wool party supporter. I vote for Labour because their general principles are closest to my own & because, during the run up to each election I’ve been entitled to vote in, no other party has proved to me to be a viable option to receive my vote. Technically, my political compass is that of an idealistic fool closest to that of the Green Party and, of the major parties, The Liberal Democrats but I don’t consider that either of these would be competent in government. That’s my more realistic side taking over ;) Plus, I can’t help but consider that my Labour vote will help in keeping the tories out of Number 10.

So, I am voting Labour. One thing is more certain than my Labour vote: the fact that I would never vote Conservative. Ever.

Even though there’s very little chance of my opinion or vote changing, I do try and keep an eye on what’s going on and what’s being said in the run up to Thursday’s General Election, locally and nationally. I’m already following the websites of our local candidates and subscribed to the newsletter and facebook page of our Labour candidate. I’m interested to see what the other candidates have to say, even though in all probability this voter’s not for turning. I’ve scooted around some of the web sites which tell you more about your vote, your constituency, your candidates and so on. (Incidentally, the lovely Jaki Booth provided a smashing blog post with some advice on where to look if you want information and are pushed for time to go trudging around looking yourself.)

Soooooooo, anyway, I’m rambling a bit. There’s a surprise. Our local Tory candidate is a young lady called Keely Huxtable. The wife of a Conservative councillor she  seems young, enthusiastic and willing to get stuck in. The seat is a pretty safe bet for Labour, Richard Burden having held it convincingly since 1992. Since twitter is my preferred medium, I would love our local candidates to be engaging constituents with it but the only one actively using twitter at present is @keelyhuxtable. Brilliant. I followed her last week, just to see how she’s campaigning, what she has to say and so on.

Yesterday I suddenly thought, ‘Hmmm that tory candidate really is quiet on twitter, not caught any of her tweets since I followed her’. So I opened Tweetie on my iPhone and clicked through to her profile and timeline.

“Not authorized”

(Yes, I *can* spell ‘authorised’, the app is American. Back off!;) ) Hmmmm. Clicked again.

“Not authorized”

A little bit weird, I thought, I’ll check this out on my pc. So, I went to my computer and went directly to her profile on twitter.com. I could see her (rather sparse) tweets but the ‘follow’ button at the top of the page said ‘follow’ rather than ‘following’. Idiot. Did I forget to follow her?! So, I clicked follow.

“This user has blocked you from following them.”

Ehhhh is twitter broken or something?! Clicked again, repeatedly in disbelief:

“This user has blocked you from following them.”

“This user has blocked you from following them.”

Whoa! Say bliddy WHAT??!!!

Honestly, I am still shocked and astounded. Digital engagement is clearly not our Keely’s thang, hip cats. This has raised an enormous list of questions in my addled little brain, some of which are:

• WHY did she block me, without even a return follow?! I hadn’t spoken to her, our only interaction was: me> follow, her >block.
• Did she look at my tweets and dislike my views?
• Was it my flippant, slightly judgemental comment about the terrifying Philippa Stroud and my subsequent retweets of two tweets by Nadine Dorries in her support with a stunned “OMFG” attached?! Or perhaps she had already blocked me before this as I followed her several days earlier.
• Did she dislike the Labour rose on my profile picture?! She allows a follow from @politicalhackuk a vocal local Labour voting blogger and activist. Has she just not realised yet?! I notice another Labour supporter @thedancingflea has also followed her since I mentioned this on twitter – let’s see if she gets to stay aboard the Keelybus!
• She doesn’t have to agree with me, I never intended to start arguments with her and she needn’t even bother following me back if she’s not keen on my twitter ramblings, but really, honestly, why BLOCK me?!
• Is it safe for people in public positions who clearly underestimate social networking and social media to be allowed near it?! A few other names spring to mind here, but I’ll keep them to myself *cough* :)
• Should I really be so bothered? In some ways, no. I follow people if I want to see what they have to share. I never expect them to want to read what I have to say and respect that they may not wish to follow me back. In the same way, I don’t feel guilty if someone follows me but I don’t find them interesting so I don’t follow them back. However, I wouldn’t block them!
• If, by some very bliddy enormous miracle, Mrs Huxtable were to actually win this seat, would she be as inaccessible to her constituents as our Member of Parliament?!

One of her canvassers has a daughter in the same class as ours. I shall be trying to catch a word in her ear at some point. I shall be emailing Keely, to ask her why she doesn’t want me to follow her tweets and I’ll let you know if I get a reply. Don’t hold your breath!

And oh, how I would love for Keely to knock on my door today………!

UPDATE: Keely has kindly replied to my email and explained. I’m still blocked at time of writing, though! Keely’s reply