Today's Local Election.

04/05/23

 We voted today in the local elections. It was the first vote in which we had to provide identification (ID) to vote; a rather sly rule brought in by the Conservatives. I reckon it was enforced to exclude a vast number of Labour voters, as it is these that are most likely not to have the relevant ID; your typical Tory being better educated and more affluent, and more likely to own a passport or driving licence to provide themselves with sufficient ID.

We expected only the tree main parties to be on the ticket, so had intended to spoil our voting slips by writing “None of the above” at the bottom. Some would ask Why spoil your ticket, why not just refuse to vote? If you don’t vote you are seen as complacent, or even apathetic, by the politicians. Which means they can ignore you. You have a voice and are not using it. But, spoilt papers have to be counted; and if there is too large a percentage of spoilt votes there is a message being sent to the government that something is wrong and there needs to be a radical shake up of the political system. You’ve used the voice, even if it’s just to tell them that we don’t want any of you wankers in power.

As it happened there were two lesser parties to vote for, so we put our X against one of these. We know they have no chance of getting in, but at least it is a vote against the big three.