The ending, redefined.

I never really took much interest in politics. Often I wasn’t registered for where I was living, I only recall voting in one local election. I had two votes, so I cast one for a Conservative and one for Labour. I got home and searched the internet for the people I voted for. I was surprised to find absolutely nothing about them. This didn’t seem right.

Then, the 2010 general election. I thought I better do my research. I quite disliked Labour. They brought gambling adverts to my TV, they wanted to build lots of casinos, new airports and vast amounts of housing. They built up huge debts (even before the financial crisis), sold all of the gold cheap, created loads of debt with PFI deals and were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Worst of all, they misled the public to gain support for an illegal war for Iraqi oil with George Bush.

So Conservatives. They seemed to get surprisingly upset about gay people, thought a proportional election system was rubbish and appeared to be very much against social mobility. The well-off should continue to do well and the poor, well, not our problem. Besides, I’m not a millionaire multi-national business owner with assets in tax havens, so not much use to me.

The Liberal Democrats seemed much more reasonable, but they wanted to join the Euro. What a potty idea!

The closest party I could find that I thought had a reasonable set of policies was the Green Party, but they didn’t have a candidate in my area …

Dear EADT,

I was amused to read your headline regarding the local elections, that apathy was the ‘real victor’. I believe our democracy is in a state of crisis. Most of us seem to have lost sight of our responsibilities to democracy. The less people participate, the closer we move to totalitarianism. Everybody has the responsibility to register to vote, to discover which candidates are standing in the upcoming election, to research their manifestos and then to vote. The best thing about a democracy is that if you do not like any of the candidates, you can stand for election yourself. There is no excuse not to participate. At the end of the day, the politicians are only as good as the public scrutinising them. We must all play our role.

I have to confess that in my twenties I either did not vote or voted choosing randomly. Now I have decided that I don’t like any of the big parties and stand as a candidate myself. I’d love to see more people take part, there is real demand in Ipswich for smaller parties such as the Green Party, UKIP, the Pirate Party and possibly even the Bus Pass Elvis Party!

One big problem we have to address is our ‘first past the post’ voting system which encourages a two party system. We need diversity, we need to ensure everyone feels their vote counts, we need a proportional voting system like the rest of Europe.

If anyone would like advice about standing in elections for a party or as an independent, councillors’ responsibilities or even how to register a new political party, I would be happy to help.