There was a time when I would get annoyed when people would say 'I don't bother voting. They're all as bad as one another'. I used to think that democracy was a great thing and that no-one should squander the right to vote.
Now I can completely empathise with that view.
If there were a general election tomorrow, I don't know who I would vote for. Either an independent or I would spoil my ballot paper in protest.
It's not just the expenses scandal or the fact that two Lords may soon be suspended for accepting bribes (the first suspensions from the House of Lords since the 17th Century) but it's the way party politics gets in the way of running the country. I'm fed up with the way all parties must disagree about everything. You can bet that if one party said that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the other two would dispute it. And every year it gets worse.
We recently had the Ghurkha episode (which despite being appalling in its own right) made me aware of two interesting facts. One was that this was the first motion to be raised by an opposition party and not won by the governmant in decades. The second was that one labour MP was forced to resign from his ministerial post to vote against the Prime Minister.
Called me daft, but isn't the point of Democracy supposed to be people voting for what they believe in? What's the point of voting for any MP if they are forced to vote with the Prime Minister and he wins nearly all the time. The big news story was that Gordon Brown had lost the vote. That this was one of the very few times democracy had worked and the lives of the Ghurkas got lost in the political wrangling.
It seems that the MPs, political jounalists, party members and a very small section of the public live in their own bubble. David Cameron might be seen to have won an argument due to some witty retort during Prime Minister's question time, but who outside of this bubble gives a frig? Is it going to make anyone's life actually better?
The whole system is rotten to the core. Guy Fawlkes had the right idea - blow it up and start again.
Now I can completely empathise with that view.
If there were a general election tomorrow, I don't know who I would vote for. Either an independent or I would spoil my ballot paper in protest.
It's not just the expenses scandal or the fact that two Lords may soon be suspended for accepting bribes (the first suspensions from the House of Lords since the 17th Century) but it's the way party politics gets in the way of running the country. I'm fed up with the way all parties must disagree about everything. You can bet that if one party said that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the other two would dispute it. And every year it gets worse.
We recently had the Ghurkha episode (which despite being appalling in its own right) made me aware of two interesting facts. One was that this was the first motion to be raised by an opposition party and not won by the governmant in decades. The second was that one labour MP was forced to resign from his ministerial post to vote against the Prime Minister.
Called me daft, but isn't the point of Democracy supposed to be people voting for what they believe in? What's the point of voting for any MP if they are forced to vote with the Prime Minister and he wins nearly all the time. The big news story was that Gordon Brown had lost the vote. That this was one of the very few times democracy had worked and the lives of the Ghurkas got lost in the political wrangling.
It seems that the MPs, political jounalists, party members and a very small section of the public live in their own bubble. David Cameron might be seen to have won an argument due to some witty retort during Prime Minister's question time, but who outside of this bubble gives a frig? Is it going to make anyone's life actually better?
The whole system is rotten to the core. Guy Fawlkes had the right idea - blow it up and start again.
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