NDP Marble Headed?

Hammond Hopewell surveys his kitchen, the absence of a kitchen table is as conspicuous as the pinkie he holds askance while sipping his Earl Grey.

“Honestly, I just feel that (NDP leader Jack) Layton has left me out in the cold. He keeps on talking about ‘kitchen table issues’, but where does that leave me?”

Hammond is one of a growing number of Canadians who would love to vote NDP, but aren’t sure if the party speaks to their issues.

“I have a marble bureau in my library,” he says pointing to the elegant escritoire in the darkly panelled room. “What about the ‘marble bureau issues’? Who’s talking about that?”

Hammond may not represent what the NDP consider their base. He’s overpaid as a third string operatic conductor who hasn’t performed in 3 years. He’s never stepped foot inside a Hamilton steel mill. And he continues to believe that Doug Flutie is an ironically named second row violinist.

His cavernous library does include a little red copy of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. But, he says, “that’s there more of a curiosity. A testament to the past that was, much like my lovely, leather-bound edition of Gutenberg’s Bible, and the petrol-powered automobile in my garage.”

Despite this, he says Layton should be making appeals to his ilk.

“If I am to be honest, I expect that the blue collar, Blue-guzzling class of Canadians are as likely to elect an NDP government as they are to trade their Sunshine Girl for Jane Austen. Layton’s votes are here, in the libraries, not at these supposed kitchen tables! But until he can give voice to my marble bureau issues, I’ll not lift a finger to elect the man,” he says, sipping his tea, his pinkie ever inflecting the gesture.