Monday, April 05, 2010

Vote #2!

As you have probably realised, I am rather cynical, especially when it comes to politics. I've reached the point where I just despair at our choices.

In next month's election, we realistically have a choice of two parties: the Labour party or the Conservative party. There are a whole bunch of others, but none of these will get a look in. (There is a third realistic alternative, actually - we could have a hung parliament, in which case we'll get several years of a government that is paralysed and unable to act. Yay!)

Of course, I now consider that the Labour party have been progressively ruining the country for years, and intend to essentially carry on with more of the same should they win. The Tories, on the other hand, seem to stand for winning the election. And then? Well, who knows. Their main selling point would appear to be that they're "not Labour", but what they most definately are is the spiritual successors to the Thatcher and Blair governments that were so toxic.

Frankly, it's a shame they can't both lose.

Anyway, given that choice, I'm left looking for the best political good that could come out of my use of my vote, and I think I've found it.

One of the other things we know is that large numbers of our politicians (of all stripes) are corrupt. Large numbers of our politicians (of all stripes) are incompetent. And there are surely a bunch more who are only neither corrupt nor incompetent only because they haven't yet had a chance.

It strikes me that we should perhaps just vote out as many of the incumbents as possible, and get as close to a clean sweep as we can. And so, I think my voting intention this time, and the advice that I would give anyone who asks, is this: find out which party came second in your constituency last time, and vote for that party this time, because that's where there's the best chance of changing the representative.

Unfortunately, for me this would mean voting SNP (when I am strongly anti-independence). Also, since I live in a Labour seat and any loss aids the Tories, this also means I'd be effectively voting for David Cameron, which I really don't want to do.

Why can't they just all lose?

2 comments:

Captain Ric said...

Do you really think that the Scottish government has been "paralysed and unable to act" since the last election? I don't think so, personally. Which says that it is entirely possible to have meaningful government by a hung parliament.

Steph/ven said...

It's a slightly different situation. Since the formation of the Scottish Parliament there has never been a party with an outright majority - we had the Labour/Liberal coalition, and now the SNP minority government. This has forced the parliament to have a much more cooperative mein than has been the case in Westminster.

Basically, the MPs in Westminster are so used to acting like children all the time that I just don't see this changing with a hung parliament. In which case, I will be extremely surprised if it isn't paralysed by the divisions.