Let's pretend...

Some of us will find this hard to do but here goes.

Let's pretend you voted Conservative last May in the general election. In some cases, you voted that way because that's the way you always vote. Maybe you are hanging on to the idea that the UK is a 'world power' rather than a pretty small country on the edge of the Atlantic with very little going for it beyond oil and a service sector, everything else having been run down - industry, agriculture, etc. You may well be the famous 'Middle England' that the UK parties are always fighting over and you looked at the Labour Party and decided you had no idea what they stood for (or you blamed them for the financial meltdown of 2008 because the press said it was their fault) and couldn't bring yourselves to vote for them. Some of you may have looked at the Lib Dems and thought their alliance with the Tories made them toxic and you couldn't vote for them. Maybe you decided you didn't like Nigel Farage after all and couldn't go with UKIP. Maybe you think all these other parties - the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru - are just a joke.

So the Tories got into power. Apparently, they were as surprised as the rest of us.

What are you thinking ten months later?

Are you thinking: Dearie me, the stooshie over the EU blew up quite fast? Some pretty important Tory politicians (well, important in their own eyes if in nobody else's) are agin the EU. It doesn't look good for Cameron. And now, there's a prominent minister - in my opinion, a headbanger who's on some sort of religious mission - resigning because the cuts in welfare that he introduced are unfair. The PM has gone very quiet at 10 Downing Street, but the press are saying that his next door neighbour the Chancellor now has not a snowball's chance in hell of being the next PM.

Are you concerned about this state of affairs? They say that Labour politicians are always caught up in money fiddles, while the Tories are usually caught up in sexual shenanigans. Not this time. Are you worried that the current government has been playing fast and loose with the national debt? That the Chancellor has failed to meet every single target he has set for the national economy?

If you are a Conservative voter in the south east of England, here's something to think about: you live in the region that is most anti-EU, despite the fact that the rest of the EU is only an hour away across the Channel. You may be in the habit of doing your duty-free shopping there on a pretty regular basis. Not to mention being the most likely to own a holiday home somewhere in the EU. Your region is also the most anti-immigrant. And the most likely to employ cleaners, gardeners, nannies, etc from other parts of the EU.

What if the rest of the UK decides it has too much to lose by leaving and votes to stay in the EU in June? Surveys suggest there are many areas like the north east and north west of England, Scotland and Wales that want to stay in the EU. We outnumber you. Even if we're poorer than the south east, our votes count just as much as yours. The south east of England will just have to suck it up and accept the decision of the majority. Will you still be willing to vote Conservative then?

Or will you, like the rest of us, be biding your time in the hope that we can kick the Tories out asap?