Asda Mums Go Blogging (From Surrey Comet)

Asda Mums Go Blogging

11:52pm Monday 31st May 2010 in Wandsworth

May has brought great political change. The election race, normally between Labour and Conservative, now included the Liberal Democrats, and it has caused one of the closest elections in at least a generation.

Asda invited some ‘mums’ to create blogs, commenting on events in the weeks before, and some days after, the election. A friend was chosen as an ‘Asda mum’; since she was undecided about who to vote for her blog attracted great interest.

I think it was a good idea to choose mothers to do the blogging as they, through their children, have an investment in the future of the UK. With those interests at heart, they would be seeking the party that meets the needs of their children through education, employment and health care.

The aim was to engage mums, who might otherwise be too busy with domestic matters, in the election, and get more people voting than at the 2005 election. Also, mothers are very influential with their children. The principle being; since children are guided by parents and particularly their mother, the parties should be listening to those mothers.

Despite all the blogging and information obtained by the mums, and questions answered by politicians, many mothers and others were disappointed with the result -a coalition government. This was in part because each party chose to interpret the absence of an overall majority as a rejection of advertised manifestos, and now the country is faced with policies it has had no chance to vote upon.