Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

 5 May 2012

VOTER BOYCOTT

The voter apathy in the UK local elections on Thursday 3 May, which we highlighted in this blog yesterday, was underlined in the lead article in today’s Guardian newspaper, which commented:

“Only one eligible voter in every three participated in the local elections. This was the worst turnout percentage since 2000….the economy is in recession for the second time in three years and times are hard. There is much to complain about. The party battle, moreover, is fierce. An angry public and a close contest ought to have been a recipe for high turnout. Yet more than two-thirds of voters decided not to take part. This lack of engagement is the most eloquent of all the political messages of these elections and the one that the parties need to take most seriously. Most voters are fed up, not fired up.”

Quite. As we said yesterday, ordinary people don’t think that these elections will make any difference to their lives and, as often happens, the verdict of ordinary people is spot on. As usual, they will gain diddly-squat from these elections, which are exclusively about reshuffling relatively lucrative local government positions among the local micro-elites of the political parties. They have zilch to do with benefiting the electorate.

——————

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

 1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Das Vierte Reich/The Fourth Reich (6 Feb 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

5. What would Gandhi have said? (30 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——————