Category Archives: vote

Wasted vote.

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How I love election days. Seriously. I do.

Despite being a cynical old sod, and despite my dissatisfaction with the fare on offer, I do not blame the system. Certainly the system ain’t great, but it’s a damn sight better than the one they have in Saudi Arabia and North Korea. That doesn’t mean we should settle for how we do business, that we shouldn’t strive to make it more equitable, but by the same token I am grateful to live in a country where I can have tiny bit of influence.

There is no grand conspiracy. There’s monkey business with postal votes certainly, but we’re not talking about the 100%+ turnout you see in some Zimbabwean constituencies. The current malaise in the relationship between the politicians and the electorate is entirely of our own making. There are no giant space lizards rigging counts, the Illuminati are not beaming ballot papers into boxes, our prison is of our own construct.

The amazing thing is, we allow the established parties to pass us the construction materials and then we build the prison exactly to their specification. We do it. Not them. We have the chance to tell them to sod off, we just choose not to do it.

Already this morning I’ve heard the old ‘wasted vote’ line. You know the one, a vote for anyone but the LibLabCon is a waste. This is a line that is put forward by the LibLabCon. Well of course they say that, they would, wouldn’t they? Whichever one of the triturdvirate they represent, they want you to vote for them, but failing that, vote for one of the other two, because they play nicely, they’re part of the club.

What you are being told when you’re fed the old ‘wasted vote’ line is that your opinion and desires are irrelevant. Bad voter, naughty voter. You must vote for what you’re told to vote for. If you went out to the pub and the conversation turned to politics, you’d not be happy if someone told you ‘your opinion is worthless and you’re wasting your breath unless you agree with me and do as I tell you’, would you? So why put up with it in the polling station?

It may be that like Sadbutmadlad over at Anna’s, you look at the options on offer and decide you don’t like any of them. The sadlad cast a blank paper. Here in my town we had the locals alongside the general election, I was heartened to discover that the parade of only big 3 candidates gave exactly enough boxes to write the word CRETIN nice and neatly with a letter in each box.

Alternatively, stay at home. Is it your vote. Not their’s. It does not belong to them, they have no right to tell you how or for whom you should vote. I always choose to use mine, but that’s my decision, I’ve also got one of those toasted sandwich makers, but I rarely use it, that’s my decision too. They can campaign and ask for your vote, that’s fine – although I’m betting in the local council elections they’ve not even bothered to do that – but never let yourself be bullied into voting one way or the other.

If you want Labour, vote for them, if you want BNP then do the same, or for the indie who wants a badger underpass built. If you don’t like them, don’t vote for them, if you do, then do. I would ask that you don’t use your vote to vote against someone, really if the only argument someone can come up with is ‘vote for me, or the other guy will get in’, then I think that tells you all you need to know about that person’s ideas, character and integrity. When you vote against someone, you’re being played like a cheap violin.

But hey, it’s your vote. Nobody else’s. Only you can escape the prison of your own construct, but it is as easy as standing up and walking out. There are no bars or guards beyond the ones you allow to exist in your mind.

17%

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That is the proportion of MPs who think that we can be trusted, should be allowed, to have some sort of say in the way our country is governed.

I never for one moment expected the motion to be carried, but such a paltry number, 111 in total, is shameful.

A dark day for democracy, and one that shakes what little faith I had in our Parliament to such a degree that I now accept without reservation that they do not serve us, are not interested in our opinion and hold us in total contempt.

It makes me very sad.

The One That Is Drowning In A Sea Of Paper. . .

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I’m slightly confused. In the papers and on TV and radio there’s talk of an election in the offing. Well, if there is, they’re doing a bloody good job of hiding it in the constituency in which I live.

A fortnight to go until the big day (Oh, Jesus, is it really a fortnight? It’s been going on for 4 years) and there’s precious little to indicate there’s anything going on down here.

I appear to be drowning in a sea of paper candidates, and even then the paper is in short supply. We have the usual suspects standing here, Con, Lib, Lab, UKIP, Green and then the very earnest Monetary Reform Party.

Visits received? Nil.

Literature received? Three. One from the Tories showing the sitting MP in a very unusual and contrived pose, comb-over plastered down on to his pate and a pair of very fetching cords. I live in Canterbury, quite a rural constituency, so the Tory seems to have gone for country gent gone to town for the day. Which as far as I can make out is a fairly accurate representation.

One from UKIP trotting out what you’d expect, promoting the fact that their man is a local businessman who does something in Whitstable. And one from the aforementioned Monetary Reform Party, who seems to be a one woman band.

Of the Greens, Labour and Lib-Dems, nothing. Silence. That’s just bloody lazy, the Royal Mail will deliver leaflets free of charge for you. Nobody seems to care about winning this seat. Why is that? Let’s look at the numbers shall we?

2005 General Election.

1st – Conservative – Julian Brazier – 21,113 votes, taking 44.4% of the turnout. +2.9%
2nd – Labour – Alex Hilton – 13,642 votes, taking 28.7% of the turnout. -8.2%
3rd – Lib Dems – Jenny Barnard-Langston – 10,059 votes, taking 21.1% of the turnout. +3.3%
4th – Green – Geoffrey Meaden – 1,521 votes, taking 3.2% of the turnout. +1.2%
5th – UKIP – John Moore – 926 votes, taking 1.9% of the turnout. +0.1%
6th – Legalise Cannabis – Rocky van der Benderskum (Where is he this year? Best name in history.) – 326 votes, taking 0.7% of the turnout. +0.7

Turnout: 66.1%

So of a constituency of 72,000 people, 21,113 of them, less than a third, actually voted for the bloke that won. What led to almost 40% of the electorate staying at home? 24,000 people could have turned this from a ‘safe’ Conservative seat into something completely different.

No doubt UKIP, the party towards whom I am most sympathetic from the choices on offer, were very disappointed with their share of the pie. I would expect them to have a significant improvement this time round. I would also expect the Tory share of the vote to go up, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that the turnout will go down in Canterbury. Not least because the candidates are so hopelessly anonymous.

If I were UKIP, I’d be looking at the lists from 2005, at those who didn’t vote, I’d be bombarding them with material and doing radical things like knocking on their doors and talking to them. But none of the parties really seem interested.

Those 24,000 people who stayed at home could have had a huge say in the way the seat went. Many would have been Tories who knew the result was a foregone conclusion. A few would have been Labour and Lib Dem supporters who knew the same. The majority would have been the don’t knows and don’t cares.

I would never support the idea of compulsory voting, it is your vote and you should be free to do whatever you wish with it. I do not hold with the opinion that those who stay at home have no right to voice an opinion. Why should you turn out to vote when those who are standing don’t really seem that bothered if you vote for them or not?

However I do believe that a vote is the most fantastic thing. There are people living in Myanmar, Saudi, China, a whole host of countries around the world who would look upon a vote that is largely fair as thing of wonder. What really annoys me is the message from the established parties and media that a vote for anyone other than the big 3 (and even including the Lib Dems in that is a stretch) is a wasted one. Don’t believe them. What they are telling you is that your opinion does not count, it is irrelevant. That’s a bloody insult to your intelligence and your worth. The only wasted vote is the one that isn’t used. Even a spoiled ballot is worth something.

24,000 people wasting their votes. Replicated in every seat across the country, indeed I believe the turnout in Canterbury was well above the national average in 2005. What those hundreds of thousands of people could achieve.

Well, I will not be wasting my vote. I’ll not be wasting it on a party that can’t be bothered to campaign for it. You just sit there, expecting me to file through like a good little drone and vote for you when you can’t be arsed to do anything for it? You can’t even be bothered to knock on front door and at least make the pretence that you care about my opinion and support? Well, fuck you.

Speaking with a friend of mine last night, he revealed that he voted BNP in the Europeans last year. I was surprised to hear that, aware of his views of their policies. He explained to me that he did it because they were the only ones who had the decency to knock on his door and actually ask for his vote.

Well, I’m going to cut Anne Belsey of the Monetary Reform Party some slack. I suspect her support network is almost nil, I don’t expect her to knock on my door, there’s only one of her. There’s hundreds of the other fuckers, and if they can’t be bothered with me, then why the hell should I be bothered with them?

Chalk up one for the Monetary Reform Party. I’m betting Ms. Belsey has conviction and genuine belief in what she espouses. That’ll do for me, I’ll vote for the person who believes in something beyond the established parties’ belief in their God given right to my vote.

The One That Says ‘It Was Only A Song. . . Jeez!’. . .

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I’m not sure whether I should be alarmed or entertained by this little story from Nanny Beeb:

People in Azerbaijan who voted for a song by neighbouring Armenia in May’s Eurovision Song Contest have been questioned by the authorities.

Perhaps there’s a Ministry of Artistic Integrity. I don’t think I’ve heard the song, but I’m sure it isn’t going to win any awards. Maybe Azerbaijan are very concerned about the public’s consumption of the arts?

One man told the BBC he was accused of being unpatriotic and a potential security threat, after he sent a text backing Armenia’s song, Jan Jan.

What? A potential security threat? Bloody hell. He voted for a fucking song. It’s not just us that use the security dogwhistle as an excuse to give someone a hard time for the hell of it, then.

The Azerbaijani authorities said people had merely been invited to explain why they voted for Armenia.

Bloody hell. I remember reading about an East Berliner who was given a hard time by the Stasi for being a Hertha Berlin fan (who played in the Bundesliga in the West) and listening to their matches on the radio. Supporting a Western Team was dangerously subversive (Dynamo Berlin were despised as the Stasi club and finally died in 1991), but to be given a hard time for text voting in the Eurovision? Invited? How? Would you like to explain your vote, or would you like Big Ivan here to hit your hands with this lump hammer? Jesus.

One final little question; How did the authorities know this man had voted for the Armenians? I’m willing to bet that it was down to the retention of all telephone calls and text messages on some sort of central database.

Of course, that could never happen here, and would never be used for such a trivial ‘offence’, no it would only be used on naughty brown people.

The One That Says Vote For Something, Not Against Something. . .

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We’re in for a spot of Parliamentary tennis over the next few years.

I believe that the evidence is crystal clear; the New Labour project has crashed and burned. We’ve had a decade of nothing but spin and parsimonious and controlling legislation. Legislation that cannot effect real change as we are so closely tied to the EU, so just serves to make our lives as difficult as possible with no real end beyond control itself. A decade of personality over policy, of shameless troughing with squeals of rage when they are shown up to be doing it. A decade of cronyism and incompetence, where attempts are made in the party HQ to rig the election of a PPC who is the daughter of a mate. A decade of treating people, even their own members, with contempt, as vassals to do their bidding whether it is what they want or not.

I was never a Labour supporter, but I could weep for the people who have found the party that represented their beliefs (the fact I disagree with those beliefs is irrelevant) has been swept away from underneath them. So desperate were the ‘elite’ in the Labour party that holding power meant more to them than what the party actually stood for.

The New Labour project has failed so massively that they could find the next election very uncomfortable indeed. I for one will not be voting for them.

But I will be voting for something. I will be voting for the Libertarian Party, if I cannot for the lack of a candidate, I will vote for an independent who actually believes in something strongly enough to put themselves forward. Someone that wants to be in Parliament to make a change, not someone that wants to be in Parliament to be in Parliament.

I think it is important to vote for something though. Don’t vote against things. Don’t vote Conservative, LimpDem, PC, SNP, Green, UKIP, BNP, Mebyon Kernow or whatever just because they are not the Labour Party. Vote for one of those parties because they best represent what you want and what you believe.

If the Tories get in with a decent majority, and I believe they will, will it be because people believe in what they have to say, or is it to do with the fact that they ain’t the other guy? Can David Cameron really stand up on the morning after election day and talk about a mandate from the people? From where I stand his policies are so similar to Labour’s it isn’t true. Both parties offer toast and jam, it’s just that one is strawberry jam and the other is blackcurrant.

There’ll be a honeymoon period. It’ll be all smiles and renewed energy, change we can believe in, and then after a year or so, people will realise that they’ve voted for the same again and the howls of frustration and resentment will start to be heard once more. Unless there are major changes, a Tory government is likely to be a one term gig. Perhaps having bounced back to Labour, and maybe even again to the Tories, people may realise that they have to break the cycle if they want things to change.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for in the election next year, or the Europeans this year, but I will tell you what to vote for:

Vote for what you want, not against what you don’t.