For this week the title says it all. Please vote.
We are just four weeks away from a general election here in the United Kingdom.
Whenever an election comes up I always have the thought that this time it will work – the new government will be so much better than the old one – a new era of prosperity will begin – the government will be loved by all. Well that’s rather over egging the pudding but it is the general sense of it. The annoying truth is that governments are all much of a muchness.
You should still vote.
You might be thinking that all the parties are the same.
You should still vote.
It could be that you simply don’t believe any of them. It could simply be that the party you like has no chance of winning – well they certainly won’t if people don’t vote.
Can I use history to appeal to you? I’m a white heterosexual man – so I’m aware of my privileged position. For women the right to vote was a long battle. Here is a link to a Wikipedia page on the subject. People have been denied the vote, across the world now, for race, religion, social class, and no doubt a multitude of other reasons. Unfortunately humans are very good at prejudice.
There is another option. It sounds strange but you could try a spoit ballot. This is when a ballot is invalidated for some reason. Click on the link to learn more. This is useful in a roundabout sort of way. It shows, unlike not going to the polling station at all, that you want to participate in the election but that you don’t like any candidate.
Voter turnout is always fairly low. If people spoiled the ballot instead of not bothering to vote it would show that people are interested and want to participate but they feel cut off from politicians. As it stands not bothering just shows the population as apathetic and, to be frank, you can’t really complain about MPs if you didn’t vote.
I told myself that I wasn’t going to post the following but I feel I must. Please don’t vote for UKIP. It is frequently accused of racism and its ideas tend to be based on lies. You can read all about at via this The Huffington Post. One UKIP donor said that women shouldn’t wear trousers this is beyond ridiculous! The main issue of UKIP is the EU. They believe it is undemocratic and not in our best interest. What is rather laughable is that their candidates often don’t even show up to vote!
I hope you will look at these articles but you should, of course, come to your own conclusions.
So please vote in four weeks time.
Voting is supposed to be private so I won’t declare it here. I also haven’t decided yet.
****
Finally I wanted to share this little titbit from Stargate SG-1
Senator Kinsey
Oh please, given the chance half of
all American citizens won’t even vote
and the half that do vote are too stupid
to know what they’re doing.
Colonel O’Neill
Which explains how you got elected.
Chain Reaction – SG-1 Season 4 Episode 15
Unstable Orbit 