They're not voting because...
- Our leaders are excellent poilticians...
Our leaders are excellent poilticians, but expertise in the extremely petty and childish games they spend their lives playing does not qualify someone to run a country.
The main parties spend all of their time hurling insults at each other and raising questions about each others' integrity. I was sick of this type of back-biting and slagning matches between cliques before I left high school; when I started following politics (this is the first election I am eligable to vote in) I certainly expected more from our potential heads of government. Any remaining shreds of hope I help out for Labour and the Conservatives were lost during the final Prime Minister's Questions. I'm less horrified by the inane scripted questions, petty insults and blatent brown-nosing than I am by the fact that the parties involved clearly expected the public to fall for it.
My hopes to see this rectified during the election campaigns by parties announcing and defending their principles in a rational manner were dashed by the release of manifestoes and statements which talk in vague emotional terms about the issues most important to a few focus groups consulted in the marginal constituencies.
Our political system has become an exercise in advertising and product presentation, insulting our intelligence with petty disputes and insults traded between parties, deliberately and transparently misleading advertising campaigns, and clumsily dodged answers to questions that interviewers never have the balls to pursue further.
The running of our country is truly important, but I cannot bring myself to vote for someone I have no respect for. I'm not suggesting that our political system be radically overhauled, only that those involved should treat the rest of us- whose interests they are supposed to be serving -with a little respect.
The only circumstance in which I would vote is if BNP or another bigoted party was likely to gain a seat in my constituency. In this event, I would vote - and urge everyone I knew to join me - for whichever party has the best chance of defeating them: a parliment of fools is better than one of bigots.
written 14th Apr 2005
