General Election 2010: Will You Be Voting?

I do not disagree with anything that has been said.  I do feel that the TV and newspapers have there own agenda, they are supposed to be impartial, I do not think they are.  Still it does not matter what they say or what they opinion polls say we have the last say when we put our cross on the ballot paper. Common guys we have the power. MPs beware. It makes me feel so much better when I have a moan.

“Hear, hear!” as they say. I agree with all of that but I’d add spin as a problem too. Spin and even outright lies have broken the electorate’s trust in our politicians. It’s no wonder people are disengaged from national politics and Tony Blair’s obsession with spin must take a large portion of the blame for that.
Further damage has been done by the whole expenses debacle which has reinforced the impression of a House of Commons full of decaying, increasingly irrelevant MPs, snouts firmly wedged in the trough of taxpayer money. Irrelevant because they seem so out of touch with reality. While normal people struggle to make ends meet, they’re sat there in gilded splendour, safe in the knowledge that come what may their gold-plated pension will keep them in comfort in their old age. Yet they moan about how hard they work. Perhaps they do but at least they’re guaranteed to have something at the end of it, which is more than a lot of us can say. And in the meantime, we can barely afford to keep a roof over our heads but they use our money to feather their nest, flip their homes and make a nice profit off the back of it. No wonder people are apathetic. Politicians seem to be worlds apart from the rest of us. They’re lucky we are so apathetic – if we were more like other countries we’d be rioting in the streets by now.
They need to get back in touch with people, not just with what people actually want, but also to be a bit more accessible as well. Dawn Primarolo is a prime example of an MP that seems just too busy to bother much with her constituents. If you want to see Dawn, you have to hope that when she gives her customary 24 hours’ notice of a surgery slot lasting just one hour, you happen to have the time free to go along. No doubt there are many others like her. Why isn’t she on sites like this, asking our opinion and telling us what she’s going to do for us? I never hear from her – NEVER – in a whole parliamentary term until her minions stick a bit of propaganda through the letterbox a couple of weeks before a general election. I’m so disenchanted with her now that if she did dare darken my doorstep, I’d slam the door in her face.
The Tories are no better – they’re so obsessed with their image that they’ve said none of their MPs can tweet without passing it through HQ first! Laughable. Totally missing the point there, chaps.

How long is it Kaptain since these politicians have thought of themselves as public servants.  We have not seen our member of parliament for years, you are right they do not come knocking on our door.  As a woman though I always vote, I remember all those woman that put their lives on the line to get us women the vote. As my father always told me if you don't vote you cannot complain.

I will definitely be exercising my democratic right to vote as I have done for the last 25 years. I think I have only missed voting twice in elections local and national and both of those were down to unforeseen circumstances. I was always encouraged to take an interest in politics from an early age due to my fathers side of the family being very active in the political arena (several relatives were councillors in various cities and one distant relative was a former Prime Minister).

As for declining numbers of voters I think it is down to a mixture of voter apathy and politicians who seem to have disengaged from the people. Many people nowadays feel that they either cannot tell the parties apart or that in general politicians have let them down through scandals, mismanagement and not really listening to what the people want. It's all well and good trotting out the same tired speeches about education, NHS, crime... but at the end of the day the person on the street wants to see sensible action being taken to address the matters that concern them.

Younger people seem to be much more apathetic and cynical as well. Again, this is probably down to the perception that politicians of all parties are the same and it won't make any difference. However, it isn't helped by the dumbed down celebrity obsessed culture we live in where to certain parts of our community politics comes way down the list to what Victoria Beckham is wearing that day, which paper Jordan is most undressed in or how drunk you can get on cheap booze from ASDA.

Politics and campaigning has also changed dramatically leading to the politicians seeming much more distant to the voters. I can remember the days when MPs would get out and campaign, knock on doors, hold open public meetings and indeed get on their soapbox when necessary. I can remember being taken to some absolute corkers of rallies and listening to impassioned speeches by politicians of all parties and hear a bit of heckling too. Nowadays too much time is spent on slick presentation to invited and carefully screened audiences where the emphasis is on soundbites rather than getting out there and engaging the voters, listening to what they want and making the right noises (and hopefully acting on the concerns).

The final thing that puts people off voting is that so many people feel that 'the state' has become their 'enemy' due to the rafts of new laws and intrusions into their lives and that nothing can be done to change it. Voting can enable change and as long as people have the democratic right to vote then they can effect change. However, if they do not vote then that can lead to those in power believing they have the mandate to do as they wish because the people did not speak. At the end of the day, the government is elected by the people to carry out the will of the people, that is why they are called public servants.

So, use your vote, don't waste it.