By Community Correspondent Peter Lidbetter.

The Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith is rapidly closing the gap on the current Lib-Dem MP, Susan Kramer, in the battle for the Richmond Park seat, which has only ever been held by a Liberal Democrat (since its creation in 1997), in what seems set to be a very tight general election. Although the campaign becomes more and more heated on both sides, nationally the number of people intending to vote remains low. The reason for this may be linked to the fact that so many of the candidates’ policies are so similar.

http://www.susankramer.org.uk/ http://www.zacgoldsmith.com/

On both candidates’ websites, scrapping the parking charges in Richmond Park, stopping the expansion of Heathrow and protecting green spaces are listed among their highest priority campaigns. However each claims to be very much different in their approach to the other. For example, although both candidates clearly state that they are in favour of scrapping parking charges, each has accused the other of supporting the idea in private and standing against it in public. Susan Kramer accused the Conservatives of failing to back a “fatal motion” in Parliament that would “defeat the parking charges plan once and for all.” Goldsmith denied that the motion would have stopped the plans and also claims on his website that whilst he and his party were forming the campaign against the proposals, the Liberal Democrats were writing to the Royal Parks Agency to help implement them.

Furthermore, on the topic of protecting gardens from industrialisation, not only do both candidates state similarly that this is a problem they have resolved to solve, but they also propose to do so in exactly the same way, by redesignating them as Greenfield sites. Even the slogan used by the Liberal Democrats, “we must protect our precious green spaces” is almost exactly the same as the name of Goldsmith’s website on the same topic: www.protectourgreenspaces.com Both parties claim that the fight against a third runway for Heathrow is far from over and both parties have resolved to fight for the preservation of Kingston Hospital’s maternity and A&E units. Both parties also campaign strongly against the use of plastic bags, claiming that they cause harm to wildlife, despite the fact that strong evidence to the contrary has been available for years. A report from the American independent think-tank, the Heartland Institute, in January 2008 demonstrates that the attribution of plastic bags to the mass deaths of large sea mammals and birds was based on a misquotation from the original Canadian study in 1987 which sparked the mass hysteria. For some reason, the fish nets that were found to cause the problems in the Canadian study were misquoted from “plastic litter” to mean plastic bags. Furthermore, plastic bags are said to require 40% less energy in their production and produce 4% the waste of their predecessor, the paper bag.

Despite the fact that this information is widely available, all three major political parties continue to fight against the use of plastic bags. Perhaps the reason is that with a rise in voter apathy and an increasing mistrust of politicians in society, it has become more important than ever for politicians to present their support for the most popular ideas, and not necessarily those in which they personally believe. This would explain the similarities in Kramer’s and Goldsmith’s policies, as they both go out of their way to demonstrate the same ideas identified as likely to win them the most votes. However, in the midst of this, the voter is left confused, presented with as-near-as-makes-no-difference identical manifestos, leading to a further decrease in the number of people voting and the greater possibility of a hung parliament.