According to the BBC, only 36% of eligible English voters bothered to put down their beers long enough to stagger to a poling station for the May 4th elections.
A survey conducted the day following the elections found that 93% of the 15 million Brits who had better things to do than vote, believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction and that by exhibiting utter apathy they were sending a powerful message to the government that things had better shape up soon. They then rolled over on the sofa, scratched their enormous asses and began to snore loudly.
The remaining seven percent simply responded, “what election?” and went back to Parliament.
Now, as much as I would like to see people like this used for medical experiments, it turns out that their apathy doesn’t necessarily deprive them of a voice in politics. Voting fraud in the form of identity theft, especially in regards to postal voting, is so rampant that an elections judge said it would “disgrace a banana republic.”
Another quaint English system that continues to defy reform is Proxy Voting. Print out and sign a short form and a friend, neighbour, or in many cases a complete stranger who happened to send in a form for you, can vote in your stead. What could possibly go wrong? If such a thing existed in the States, Florida wouldn’t have had to waste so much time rigging the 2000 election.
In the US there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fault-riddled Diebold voting machines and we all know that but for a few hanging chads the world today would be a far, far, better place. But both those systems are models of security and efficiency compared to what passes for a “secret” ballot over here: a pencil marked “X” on a folded piece of paper.
In spite of the odds, both my partner and I managed to register to vote and receive our poling notifications through the mail (although the first registration form never managed to make it back to the council). After six years of taxation without representation, I sure as hell was not going to miss my first ever British election even if it might cost my company an extra train ticket to get me back from Paris (it did).
In the US you know when it is election season because your mailbox starts to fill with political junk mail and every TV commercial and bill-board is adorned with the smiling face of some rich white guy trying to get your vote. Here in the UK (and seemingly most of Europe), overt political advertising is seen as somewhat tacky. Sure we receive a few flyers though the mail-slot but nothing compared to the tsunami of dead trees that pile up on an American doorstep.
We Americans like to bemoan the lack of choice in our two-party system. Here in England any yahoo with a snail-mail address and a working telephone can launch a political party. At last count there were 180 registered political parties in the UK including: “The Church of the Militant Elvis Party,” “The Fancy Dress Party,” and everyone’s favourite, “The Monster Raving Loony Party” (which actually won a seat on a Devon town council).
However if you don’t fancy completely tossing your vote into the bin, it would be advisable to stick with one of the Big Three which are, in descending order of sleaziness: Labour, Conservatives (Tories) or Liberal Democrats.
In the States we make a big deal about “voting the party line” but at the end of the day, with the exception of that Electoral College bullshit, we vote for the person, not the party: in the UK they do it the other way around. Forget trying to get any information on actual candidates, they are merely empty vessels into which party ideals are injected. I spent a week trying to hunt down any statements at all from the pols running for my local council seats in this past election and came up with nada.
I had a rather noisy debate with my partner (British) and a friend (German) over the wisdom of such a system. Their wine-fuelled reasoning went like this: if you know the ideology of the party you are voting for then the individual representing the party doesn’t matter. In Parliament they’ll all vote as a block of good little robots anyway and anyone who doesn’t tow the line gets sacked or relegated to the political dead-zone of the back benches.
Naturally I began to heap scorn on such a hive mentality where so much trust is placed in the ideals of the party while the intellectual nuances or eccentricities of the individual candidates are swept aside. They responded with a reasoned, “Well, your system gave us George Bush!” And I was forced to concede the point.
But I digress. Up for grabs on the May 4th election were 5000 council seats across the country. The results of these local contests are usually seen as a bellwether for the national elections. If that is truly the case then Blair best just turn out the lights and leave quietly before he is forcibly removed by the Metropolitan Police.
Labour was trounced so unmercifully that even aged political cynics like me were embarrassed for them. Labour candidates were stomped like wild dogs and ended up holding onto control of only 30 out of 176 councils. Disgust and loathing were so widespread that even the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP) made gains in traditionally safe Labour seats.
In response to this public whipping, Blair, like his co-conspirator across the Atlantic, reshuffled his deck without changing the cards. But anyone who watches the news can tell that he is mortally wounded. He’s been beaten by his own hubris and the chickens are coming home to roost.
But not soon enough. Two more British troops were blown to pieces today by a roadside bomb in Iraq and the blood is really starting to stain the hand towels at Number 10. Forget trying to govern effectively, Labour hacks are being shouted off stage by their own constituents and increasingly desperate calls to “stay the course” are being met with open jeers and derision by back benchers who have suddenly grown some balls.
Whatever wagons Blair might by trying to circle are already burning and his old buddy George W. is too busy watching his own numbers sink down the shit-hole to give a damn about the problems of some limey lapdog. Blair and his entire New Labour, big-business, pro-war, machine are a bucket of doomed sucker fish waiting for the bait knife.
Or maybe not. According to the law, Blair doesn’t have to call another election until 2010. He didn’t hold onto power this long by not learning from the successes of others. Four years gives him plenty of time to install a few thousand Diebold voting machines and that might just give him all the edge he needs.
A survey conducted the day following the elections found that 93% of the 15 million Brits who had better things to do than vote, believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction and that by exhibiting utter apathy they were sending a powerful message to the government that things had better shape up soon. They then rolled over on the sofa, scratched their enormous asses and began to snore loudly.
The remaining seven percent simply responded, “what election?” and went back to Parliament.
Now, as much as I would like to see people like this used for medical experiments, it turns out that their apathy doesn’t necessarily deprive them of a voice in politics. Voting fraud in the form of identity theft, especially in regards to postal voting, is so rampant that an elections judge said it would “disgrace a banana republic.”
Another quaint English system that continues to defy reform is Proxy Voting. Print out and sign a short form and a friend, neighbour, or in many cases a complete stranger who happened to send in a form for you, can vote in your stead. What could possibly go wrong? If such a thing existed in the States, Florida wouldn’t have had to waste so much time rigging the 2000 election.
In the US there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fault-riddled Diebold voting machines and we all know that but for a few hanging chads the world today would be a far, far, better place. But both those systems are models of security and efficiency compared to what passes for a “secret” ballot over here: a pencil marked “X” on a folded piece of paper.
In spite of the odds, both my partner and I managed to register to vote and receive our poling notifications through the mail (although the first registration form never managed to make it back to the council). After six years of taxation without representation, I sure as hell was not going to miss my first ever British election even if it might cost my company an extra train ticket to get me back from Paris (it did).
In the US you know when it is election season because your mailbox starts to fill with political junk mail and every TV commercial and bill-board is adorned with the smiling face of some rich white guy trying to get your vote. Here in the UK (and seemingly most of Europe), overt political advertising is seen as somewhat tacky. Sure we receive a few flyers though the mail-slot but nothing compared to the tsunami of dead trees that pile up on an American doorstep.
We Americans like to bemoan the lack of choice in our two-party system. Here in England any yahoo with a snail-mail address and a working telephone can launch a political party. At last count there were 180 registered political parties in the UK including: “The Church of the Militant Elvis Party,” “The Fancy Dress Party,” and everyone’s favourite, “The Monster Raving Loony Party” (which actually won a seat on a Devon town council).
However if you don’t fancy completely tossing your vote into the bin, it would be advisable to stick with one of the Big Three which are, in descending order of sleaziness: Labour, Conservatives (Tories) or Liberal Democrats.
In the States we make a big deal about “voting the party line” but at the end of the day, with the exception of that Electoral College bullshit, we vote for the person, not the party: in the UK they do it the other way around. Forget trying to get any information on actual candidates, they are merely empty vessels into which party ideals are injected. I spent a week trying to hunt down any statements at all from the pols running for my local council seats in this past election and came up with nada.
I had a rather noisy debate with my partner (British) and a friend (German) over the wisdom of such a system. Their wine-fuelled reasoning went like this: if you know the ideology of the party you are voting for then the individual representing the party doesn’t matter. In Parliament they’ll all vote as a block of good little robots anyway and anyone who doesn’t tow the line gets sacked or relegated to the political dead-zone of the back benches.
Naturally I began to heap scorn on such a hive mentality where so much trust is placed in the ideals of the party while the intellectual nuances or eccentricities of the individual candidates are swept aside. They responded with a reasoned, “Well, your system gave us George Bush!” And I was forced to concede the point.
But I digress. Up for grabs on the May 4th election were 5000 council seats across the country. The results of these local contests are usually seen as a bellwether for the national elections. If that is truly the case then Blair best just turn out the lights and leave quietly before he is forcibly removed by the Metropolitan Police.
Labour was trounced so unmercifully that even aged political cynics like me were embarrassed for them. Labour candidates were stomped like wild dogs and ended up holding onto control of only 30 out of 176 councils. Disgust and loathing were so widespread that even the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP) made gains in traditionally safe Labour seats.
In response to this public whipping, Blair, like his co-conspirator across the Atlantic, reshuffled his deck without changing the cards. But anyone who watches the news can tell that he is mortally wounded. He’s been beaten by his own hubris and the chickens are coming home to roost.
But not soon enough. Two more British troops were blown to pieces today by a roadside bomb in Iraq and the blood is really starting to stain the hand towels at Number 10. Forget trying to govern effectively, Labour hacks are being shouted off stage by their own constituents and increasingly desperate calls to “stay the course” are being met with open jeers and derision by back benchers who have suddenly grown some balls.
Whatever wagons Blair might by trying to circle are already burning and his old buddy George W. is too busy watching his own numbers sink down the shit-hole to give a damn about the problems of some limey lapdog. Blair and his entire New Labour, big-business, pro-war, machine are a bucket of doomed sucker fish waiting for the bait knife.
Or maybe not. According to the law, Blair doesn’t have to call another election until 2010. He didn’t hold onto power this long by not learning from the successes of others. Four years gives him plenty of time to install a few thousand Diebold voting machines and that might just give him all the edge he needs.
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