They're not voting because...
- I do not feel that there is a single...
I do not feel that there is a single party that is credibly capable of forming a government that has any interest other than electioneering in the bad sense - focus groups, twisting words, half-hearted sentiments and limp-wristed handshakes - let alone a genuine ideological agenda in the same region as mine. I identify most with Orange Book liberals, who are an ineffectual minority within an ineffectual parliamentary party whose ideals, governed as they are by an internally conflicting background of social democratism and liberalism, are hazy and changeable at best. The two leading parties are such squabbling rabbles, with such desperate would-be demagogues as leaders, that voting for them would be anathema. Of course I could get involved, and after the election I intend to: I am a paid-up member of the Lib Dems and will become a far more active member after May. But the trend against genuine political current towards media-market led vote grabbing is inescapable, and leaves you feeling an acute sense of futility at any act of political 'involvement'. I shan't merely abstain; like, I suspect, many others, I'll be spoiling my ballot (probably quite graphically). Not that it will make a blind bit of difference. Aye, there's the rub.
written 18th Apr 2005
