Grow Your Own Green Shoots. Get Out and Vote!
In a little over two weeks’ time, those who care about such things will put a cross in a box and vote in the local and mayoral elections, in areas of the country where polling is taking place. “Local elections – a waste of time” is a common response, or “I don’t vote because they do nothing for me”, both of which are bollocks. Votes are only a waste of time or do nothing for those who can’t be arsed. The rest of us are in a significant minority, and that’s simply shameful when you consider people died to give us the privilege.
Politicians at all levels have done themselves few favours, especially in the last couple of decades, but without the form of democracy they currently deliver, there would be anarchy. That would benefit nobody. The way forward is to vote in such numbers that each of us contributes to shaping the world for future generations. Politicians need your votes, or they don’t get elected. It doesn’t stop there because when they get elected, they are responsible to you. You are the boss, not them. You can also vote them out if they don’t perform. So vote.
We are also months away from a General Election. The options aren’t great, but there is one thing that must happen: we must consign the Tories to oblivion. There really is no hope if you can’t see the extreme damage their 14 years in power has done to this country, while at the same time lining the pockets of those who lend them their support: support which comes at a very high price.
Four successive governments have demonstrated an extreme detachment from the reality of the lives of most of us, and it naturally leads you to question whether a vote has any value. I have always voted, but nobody is ever guaranteed my vote. My vote is mine, and you can assume all you like where that vote may go, but I believe strongly in a secret ballot because it’s the basis of true democracy. I know exactly which way I’m going to vote, in both the local and national elections, and I’ve already given you the only clue you’re getting.
The only way this country will breathe again is for the Tories to suffer humiliating, demoralising, Party-ending losses. I have frankly run out of expletives with which to describe them. Any new administration will inherit a seriously sabotaged inbox, so forget knee-jerking back to another party if the first five years don’t work out. It will take several generations to recover the damage the Tories have done to our international reputation. In order to do that we have to be regarded once again as ‘the place to be’. Our current reputation outside these shores lies somewhere between a sick joke and ‘Billy-No-Mates. Recovering that reputation will involve re-setting the foundations of just about everything good that’s happened in my 66 years on earth.
It takes ten minutes to go and vote. So don’t waste the opportunity.
Peace.
John