Scream into Space or Making A Difference?

It would seem a bit amiss if I didn't write something to do with the impending General Election given that Politics was one of the subjects that prompted me to start writing this extremely occasional Blog.

It is clear that the mass public are both turned off and bemused by the two main Parties and on the face of it there doesn’t seem to be any good reason why people should put their time and effort into deciding whether to support either the Labour or Conservative Parties. To almost quote Shakespeare, ‘a plague on both their houses’.

Of course, if you're in Scotland there is a strong and valid reason why you might choose to vote SNP and only someone divorced from the real world would pretend to not understand the passions that are driving hundreds of thousands of people towards voting UKIP or Green across the rest of the UK.

The frustrating aloofness, arrogance and general weirdness of our mainstream politicians has left us all wanting to give them a good kicking. Thursday is our payback time.

Do we not all feel an urge to give them a bloody nose for their blatant incapability to have a single clue about what it’s like to be a regular British citizen, whether you’re a “hard working” one or not?

But as Thursday approaches, our collective mind needs to become a lot more focussed on the real choices that are facing us.

Unless you live in a safe Lib-Dem constituency, a vote for anyone other than Labour or Conservative is just a scream in space. A cathartic burst of passion and frustration that will leave you momentarily feeling empowered and satisfied, but like a Haribo sugar rush the buzz will quickly fade and you will crash only to find that your job, your education, your hopes, indeed everything you hold important to how you want to live has been scuppered because your ‘protest’ vote achieved nothing.

Of course, if we had a system of Proportional Representation, a vote of dissent may be well placed, but in our first past the post, ‘you win - I lose’ system, it is essential that we each make sure our vote counts.

We must engage with the system we actually have and use our votes constructively; casting a vote for either the Labour or Conservative Party means we are actually impacting upon who will lead the next Government and that will make a difference to all of us.

It may not be your ideal scenario, but we are going to have a Government led by either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party; which one it is is going to be down to you.  

Make a difference.

Alice Cooper - Elected  (UK #4 in 1972)