Most students have probably had enough of polls, what with the fortnight of hell we had to suffer ahead of the March Union Elections.
But now it’s the turn of the grown-ups and the Sheffield Central seat – held by Richard Caborn since 1983 – is very much up for grabs in the upcoming General Election.
Boundary changes put in place for this election have reduced the Labour majority from just over 7,000 to around 4,500.
The introduction of Broomhill – a safe Liberal Democrats ward in local council elections – at the expense of Labour stronghold Burngreave is a bonus for those donning yellow rosettes this election campaign.
Only Labour and the Lib Dems stand a realistic chance of taking the seat.
The Green Party, UKIP and the Conservatives are also represented. But it’s looking like a straight battle between two men: Paul Blomfield of Labour and Paul Scriven of the Lib Dems.
Both live and work in and around the area. So no career politician from North Yorkshire at least.
The work they have done for the city and the positions they have held makes them impressive candidates.
Scriven is the current leader of the city council and answered his party’s calling to lead them to victory. He’s an astute local politician nowadays after spells digging roads and running a travel company since leaving school without a qualification.
Blomfield is the former chair of Sheffield Labour Party and the current General Manager of our university’s students’ union. However, he took unpaid leave from March just as the Union Elections were in full swing. Can’t blame him there.
Blomfield doesn’t really have the experience of Scriven in local frontline politics but has been active at some stage all the same.
I was tempted to look on the Sheffield Forum website or pop back out of a self-imposed Facebook ban to read up on the candidates.
Sadly, the Sheffield Forum is mainly a collection of people who can’t get on radio phone-ins, while Facebook will be littered with Photoshopped images of Brown battering some Etonians or Cameron sat at the breakfast table surrounded by 40-year-old black men from Plymouth.
So to the candidates’ websites it was.
First look at Scriven’s is a little discomforting. His face is everywhere. I know it’s his website, but after logging off I felt like having a five-mile restraining order put on him. I can still feel him watching me now.
Blomfield’s is a little more sedate. You get chance to casually look around: a nice tree here; Park Hill flats there; Richard Caborn as a young man – no, wait, that’s Blomfield.
He and Caborn are stood together in one photo. I think the latter could be a Highlander.
Over the next few weeks we need to see the personalities beneath the photo opportunities.
I want to see blood and guts on the battleground outside Balti King. I want to know what riles these men; what makes them fight injustice on our behalf. Us, the people of S1.
(Well, not me. I’m more S12, but originally representin’ S2 and that’s sort of near S1, init?)
When you look back through Scriven’s political conquests and notice he was President of the students’ union at Manchester Metropolitan, alarm bells start ringing.
Was he one of them? One of the kids of a few weeks ago playing grown-ups with their paints and cardboard?
Contrast this to Blomfield, whose early political exploits point to Nelson Mandela’s man on the outside. He single-handedly set up the Sheffield Anti-Apartheid Movement when he was still at school. Ever get the nagging feeling of under achievement?
Blomfield is big on the economy of Sheffield, manufacturing and both the universities.
He wants to concentrate on the social aspect of Sheffield, building communities by tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.
Scriven, according to ‘Paul’s Priorities’, wants to achieve much the same. He has the vision of smaller class sizes and a better, broader curriculum.
He wants to set local business free. He champions well-resourced public services with local accountability. And if you’re really lucky you get to ride the ‘ladder of opportunity’.
I was a little pensive ahead of climbing it but it turns out it’s safe and is merely a social justice thing for those on t’Manor and the ‘ethnic minority community’.
Blomfield pledges a higher sense of clarity and transparency. He’ll publish his expenses (they do any way) and he will hold regular public meetings. That’s what an MP is supposed to do, isn’t it?
Scriven, on the other hand, has been working hard and has stood outside almost every primary school.
Both have pledged support for students now the constituency covers both universities, despite that around a third will have disappeared after casting their vote.
I’m not sure most students will even be arsed to register their vote here.
The political landscape is potentially changing. And the battle between Scriven and Blomfield will be an intriguing one.
But I reckon most students are longing for May 6, when yellow and red leaflets will cease landing on the doormat.