This post is simple. Simple maths.

This snap election that Teresa May called is costing £116,650,000 from public funds to administer. On top of that the parties combined will likely spend a further £40,000,000 of their own funds on campaigning, propaganda, printing and rosette-making.

Do you know what we could have done with nearly ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY MILLION POUNDS?

We could have:

A. FED ALL THE PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN BRITAIN FOR A MONTH.

Lunch cost around £2.10 for two courses for each student. Times that by the current number of primary school-aged children (around 4.7 million). That covers the whole of the month of October for school lunches!

B. COVERED THE COST OF DEMENTIA CARE FOR NEARLY 4000 PEOPLE

The average cost of the care per annum for a person with Dementia is £32,250. If Teresa May hadn’t called the election, funds would have been enough to cover the cost of almost 5000 vulnerable people’s care until mid-2018.

C. BUILT A BRAND NEW HOSPITAL

The cost of the Whitehaven Hospital was 90 Million pounds in 2015. Even allowing for a little inflation and costs of equipment, this should leave enough money to spare to staff a hospital for three years. We could have had an extra or new hospital instead of an election. Just when they are closing existing provision such as the Urgent Care Unit in Canterbury, Kent.

D. SENT EACH HOUSEHOLD IN THE UK A BOTTLE OF PROSECCO.

There are around 26 million households in the UK. The current price of a bottle of Canti Prosecco at ASDA is £6, currently reduced from £8.98. We could all have a bottle, with some change to spare. There’s something to think about; perhaps people would have preferred one of these on their doorsteps, rather than a polling card…

Happy voting tomorrow everyone!