Bag's Rants

My stake in the ground on tactical voting.

On the one hand we have Margaret Hodge, MP, claiming that the BNP will make headway in her constituency due to government policy, or lack of, on immigration. On the other hand we have people saying to corrupt their votes by putting none of the above in which case the BNP won't win and Margaret has nothing to be scared of.

I'm afraid I'm one of those in line with upsetting the apple cart and not wasting a vote for no reason. My view is that there is always a hard core of people to vote for Labour, LibDems and the Tories. They will always still vote and void votes just ensure they get in again. Much, much better to vote for someone to upset the status quo. (Not the group) That way the government will be fragmented and incapable of forcing through policies like Blair has the last decade. Four or so years on a BNP led government couldn't do any worse than this lot and it would give the main parties time to sort out their politics, maybe not the Tories though although that will make 18 years in total so there is a, slight, chance. With little chance of a real majority in the house the 'winner' would be forced to temper their policies and that would undoubtedly be for the better.

It would be much better if that for each constituency there was some sort of candidate recommended who we could all vote for rather than waste our votes. Recommended as some one non threatening or just interested in local matters. Someone green in one and BNP in another and save the whales in another. Not enough for any party to have a majority in the house. There must be a limited amount of constituencies where it would not be worth targeting either because it is only the big three up for election, in which case none of the above seems a good statement to make, or there is too much of a majority for one party. Or maybe the public have changed enough that no majority can be secure. I don't know but it won't matter if we waste our votes. Looks like we need a website to target all constituencies and identify potential candidates. www.ibelieveindemocracy.co.uk or something. With a recommendation on who has the best chance of winning with all our disenchantment votes. I've heard it said that Blogs are taking over from the media. This could be our real chance to make a difference in the UK. Bring it back from the brink of dictatorship and turn it into a real people led democracy.

Remember how much has been screwed up with only 35% voting for our current government. Any win for them is still a win, support for current policies and a mandate to go on. Even if it is only 5% of voters vote for the winner, 4% for the next and so on with 90% wasted. They will say we must do something about the voter lethargy in the UK but in the meantime in comes compulsory tattooing of ID numbers on your forearm as the next stage of our terrorism prevention package by our democratically elected government.

Don't waste your vote. Vote tactically. Chose wisely young padwan.

posted by Bag @ 1:58 pm