Two days until the general election in the UK and the biggest question on my mind is do I even care? I'd already decided that I was not going to vote. I'm pretty sure I've already thrown away my polling card. Then Stephen Fry wrote a huge blog post about how everyone should use their vote and how it's lazy and cowardly to not do so. I decided in that case as I have a blog too that I would explain why I don't care.
I've tried on more than one occasion to read up on all the parties and decide who fits with my mindset but I've never managed to finish. The party manifestos just can't hold my interest. They're all full of grand promises and vague assertions which mean nothing to me, I've got more important things to do than figure all this out. In the twelve years I've been of voting age they seem to have mostly managed without me. So why should I start now? I'd be happy to vote if there was someone I liked but there isn't. Why should be forced to pick the lesser of two evils? I choose to use my vote to vote for nobody representing my displeasure with all parties.
There are two major issues which I have an interest in. The first is NHS spending as being diabetic I use a lot of NHS services. However as far as I can tell all the parties have pretty much the same vague plan. To try and make funding cuts without disrupting services. So that doesn't set anyone apart, what else is there?
The second issue I have is the digital economy bill. In it's current form I'm completely against it. However every single councillor in Sheffield voted for the bill while at the same time—according to the records—none of them even turned up to parliament for the reading of the bill. So why should I care when that gives the impression that they don't. They must all have been too concerned with preparing for the election yet ignoring the one issue which could have turned it for me.
Next there's a local issue, apparently there's not enough councillors in Sheffield representing the Conservatives or the Greens making it physically impossible for them to win the seat. I'll admit I don't know the full details but that doesn't sound particularly democratic to me.
Finally there's all the propaganda, leaflets, pretend newspapers, handwritten letters (which are actually printed) and all that stuff, not a day goes by when I don't get something through the letterbox. It feels like they're desperate but it doesn't help, they go straight in the bin. What a waste of paper that is and how much money could they have saved if they left those out?
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This all makes perfect sense from your point of view. You live in a safe Labour seat, and so whoever you vote for, it isn't going to make much difference. It's the marginals that win and lose elections, and in them, the people who might change their allegiance, which means that the outcome of the election is in the hands of approx 100,000 people.
ReplyDeleteStephen Fry is right, though, that voting is a good thing in and of itself. It reminds you that you live in a democracy, and you do (technically) have a say, and these freedoms were hard won. It's the least we can do to show our gratitude for those who fought for universal and female suffrage.
I can so well understand your feeling that they're all the same, so who to vote for, because in those twelve years in which you have been of voting age, politicians have become more and more alike, constantly trying to water down their messages to appeal to the broadest possible section of society. I wish I could take you back to the year you were born, things were more exciting then!
Lots of countries have more, smaller parties, where they can target their appeal more specifically, and it may be that that is the way we are moving. But if it is, we'll end up with coalitions, like they have in the rest of Europe. Wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Every country that has them ends up with two wings. Left and Right. It's the natural divide, and most people know which side of it they are on, even if they are not far from the dividing line. The state knows best, or freedom of the individual? That's what it boils down to really, I think.
Sorry to waffle on. That was the brief version heh heh
Now that's another problem. Left vs Right, I've no idea where stand there. I barely even know what that means. Can't they have a more descriptive term for it? Left or right of what? The middle? It makes no sense! Why do they make it all so complicated?
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