Engaging the Voter

Another election period and this time we are spending more time than usual trying to engage the voter. There are two standard types of anti-voters which we often meet.

In the current climate there are more than the usual number of responses that politicians are dishonest, cheating liars, out to feather their own nests. I want people to know that I am a politician of a different type and I hope that before long I will have the opportunity to prove this. I would also add that the current economic situation has arisen not just through the actions of politicians but also as a result of the actions of bankers and city traders and across the spectrum from one of people's less redeeming features '“ greed.

Another response is the 'can't be bothered/don't want to know/not voting' person. Here I ask them to consider the great trouble that individuals went to in the past to obtain universal suffrage '“ votes for everyone or in the truer meaning of the expression one vote for every person. We tend to remember the struggle for the vote in the guise of the women suffragettes, chaining themselves to railings and throwing themselves in front of race horses. There was however also a gradual struggle for the working man to get the vote. Recent turn outs on polling day are a poor reward for the struggles those campaigners went through.

Today there is no real barrier to exercising one's vote other than ensuring that your name is on the electoral register. It is therefore a personal choice to reject your democratic opportunity. I think that with that rejection the right to criticise those who are elected is lost.