They're not voting because...
- Blair has cleverly rendered the Tories...
Blair has cleverly rendered the Tories impotent by appropriating their traditional centre-right ground. If ever the Tories recover from this, we will have to choose between one of two centre-right parties. Voting for any third party is useless due to the first-past-the-post system that ensures a party receiving 20% of the votes will have far less than 20% of the seats in parliament.
So at best we face an American-style future, choosing between two almost indistinguishable parties, and at worst we get New Labour for ever.
As New Labour took the country to war on a completely false premise (weapons of mass destruction) and as New Labour has used the "war on terror" as an excuse to remove civil liberties, New Labour is not worth voting for. Neither are the opposition parties, who respond by trotting out the usual domestic policies as though nothing ever happened.
If we keep on voting regardless, the politicians will convince themselves all is well and carry on as before. They get really worried when people stop voting. A few million spoilt ballot papers would send an even stronger signal of disillusionment.
I think this is now the only way to show politicians we are sick of being lied to and to force them to adopt a system that reflects the way we vote.
written 8th Apr 2005
Responses
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Jeffrey replies: I agree. We need to force MPs to recognise that until we get PR, the elections in this country are unfair.
There should be a big campaign out to spoil ballots instead of not voting. I refuse to vote Labour or Tory and I can't vote any of the others as that will be a wasted vote.
written 8th Apr 2005
