Britain's political landscape is a wasteland
of so called 'centre ground' politics. Conservatives are the same nasty Tories
they've always been but they pretend to have discovered compassion. New Labour
are Tories with Red ties and a few quid from unions. The Lib Dems are just
lying Tory bitches and the new kids on the block - UKIP - are merely a more
racist, homophobic version of the Tories. Guest blogger PAUL SOUTHWOOD bemoans a
lack of choice and explains that not voting should be seen as a positive action.It's not apathy that stops people voting, it's the realisation that politicians are all the same.
VOTER APATHY. Already, the phrase has become
enshrined in media-speak as a pocket-sized explanation for why so many people stay away from ballot boxes
at elections. But it is a misnomer - like describing comets as falling stars or
fossils as figured stones. Perhaps there are some apathetic non-voters out
there; I haven't met any. I have on the other hand met angry non-voters. After
some thought I have decided to join them as I am angry
too.
Voters of course, are horrified. If you
don't exercise your right to vote they say then you have no ability to effect
changes nor any right to criticise the elected government. And the vote, they
say is a right for which our forebears fought - at great cost to themselves.
Political parties of course feel no such tug
of' historical heartstrings. This seems especially true of the present Labour
Party; historically, nobody much can be said to have made any great sacrifice
for the cause of Toryism.
Sadly, history can make a mockery of
sacrifice, and it can do so In short order. 'If I die,' wrote many Red Army
soldiers before battle was joined at Kursk "then count me a
communist." Yet even if their sacrifice changed history, where now is their
cause '? The Vietnam War cost one side millions of casualties, and scarified
the conscience - and pride - of' the other. Yet now, increasingly, Vietnam is
an aspiring Singapore.
History is littered with such lost causes -
some deservedly lost. If British democracy is not to join them, then British
politicians must manifest the one characteristic that makes voting in a
multi-party state worthwhile - difference.
