Tuesday 4 May 2010

Lesser Evilism or Voting For What You Believe In


The General Election campaign of 2010 has been dominated by the televised prime ministerial debates, a sort of X Factor for not so good looking people. Instant polls have declared first Nick Clegg then David Cameron the winner, with Gordon Brown mostly trailing in third place.

Although the opinion polls seem to point to a Tory government over the last week of the campaign, Clegg has done well for the Lib Dems, to shake up most pundits predictions, by appearing as the anti establishment figure. The fact that he is as establishment as they come, public school, university, professional politician without ever living in the same world as most voters, doesn’t appear to have affected this. If only the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas had been allowed to take her place, we would have had a proper anti establishment figure to rally around, as well some real choice in the election. It is quite possible that if this had happened, the Green Party would be at 25% in the polls, and we would have seen a truly watershed election.

Instead, the choice placed before the voters by the TV debates, was three shades of blue, much as we have had for the past 30 years, so all this talk of breaking the mould of UK politics etc, is at best media hype. All the talk of change is complete spin and we will wake up on 7th May with yet another reactionary government, albeit possibly a coalition of two of the main parties. We may get a change in the electoral system out of a hung parliament, but I doubt it, the Tories particularly have too much to lose by it.

The stark thing is, policy has taken a back seat in this campaign, with the three main parties talking of the need for cuts in public services, but barely detailing 20% of what these cuts will amount to in practice. All this, in a desperate effort to get back to where we were before the recession hit in 2008. But why would we want to go back to this failed system of casino capitalism? Have we learnt nothing from this traumatic economic catastrophe? It seems not.

Some very big new thinking needs to be done to put our economy on a sustainable footing, to deliver fairness and equality, and real democratic renewal to a corrupt and discredited system, in which MP’s line their pockets by maintaining the status quo. If ever there was chance to really break the mould of British politics, then this is it. It will not come though, by voting Tory, Labour or Lib Dem.

If you really want political and economic change, then you need to place an X by the name of the Green Party candidate in your ward/constituency. We will only gain a handful of seats at Westminster this time, in Brighton Pavilion, Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford at best. But, if you really want our policies, and surveys show you do, vote for them. You'll never get them otherwise. A big shift towards us will cause the other parties to adopt more of our policies.

If people keep voting for the lesser evil party of the establishment, then you surely will always get evil in the end. Make a stand, Vote Green in the local and general elections this year.

1 comment:

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