It's a depressing fact that although there are many elections this week turnover is unlikely to exceed 50% in any of them. That will be true even in places like Scotland, where the outcome really matters. In places like East Cambridgeshire, where I will be voting it will be much lower.
Why? Partly because politics alienates people.
Partly too because people see the outcome as pretty inevitable in too many cases, like East Cambs..
And partly because parties who know that results are inevitable make only token gestures at reaching out in far too many cases.
The solution is twofold. One is universal proportional representation (and yes, I know it will be in use in the elections with the highest turnouts this week, which makes my point) so that every vote counts. The second is mandatory voting.
Both support democracy.
Neither of the two largest parties in the UK want either of them.
That makes it quite hard to support them. Why vote for someone who does not respect your vote?
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Tory MP’s keep saying ” What I am hearing on the doorsteps is the public is not interested in Johnson’s wallpaper”
Well I cannot remember how long it is since anyone from any of the parties came to my door, certainly years ago, so they must be calling on a very select few voters
I wonder how many more defeats it will take for Labour to realise that the current FPTP system is no longer their friend?
Apparently the latest poll from the Hartlepool election gives the Tories a 17 point lead. The corrupt Tories. They could get away with murder and piling up the bodies and enough would still vote for them. I wonder what’s the point. Well, I won’t be voting. My vote wouldn’t count as I live in a Tory FPTP stronghold so exactly what is the point? Just to make up the numbers so the Tories can say that FPTP still works? Stuff that. I’m in favour of PR and mandatory voting. In fact, mandatory voting in FPTP would be interesting just to see what results it would throw up. I’m also in favour of reducing the voting age to 16. If you can work and pay taxes at that age you should have a vote. the Tory soft fascists will never allow it. The current system is too cosy for them. Win with a third of the vote, who needs dictatorship when you have an elected dictatorship sown up?
Labour, wake up and smell the coffee, FPTP IS NO LONGER YOUR FRIEND.
Exactly Mar P, absolutely correct. What a ludicrous political system we now have. It doesn’t matter how corrupt, incompetent and dishonest the right are, there are enough guillible, uninformed (they don’t want to be informed?), uncaring voters out there, when combined with FPTP, to ensure they ‘win’ elections. And Labour still P*** around thinking, apparently, that they can defeat this without co-operating with other parties.
Labour’s stupidity about this is staggering. Like you, I live in a Tory safe seat so voting in General elections is pointless. I am going to start making regular payments to one of the groups (Compass or MVM) campaigning for PR who are going to try and persuade the Labour lunkheads to enter an electoral pact with the aim of getting the CIL (Corrupt Incompetent Liars) party out of office, and then immediately replace FPTP by PR. One can hope……
One has to hope ……
The reason why Hartlepool won’t vote Labour is they simply can’t stand the wokist left wing “intelligencia “ embedded in the Party..why can that not be understood?
Labour will have a lot of thinking to do if they can’t keep a seat that they have held since 1945 (apart from five years following a wafer-thin Tory majority in 1959) and even won despite the landslide two years ago.
For the record, I doubt it has much to do with any concern about a “wokist intelligencia” – whatever that is meant to mean – but has quite a lot to do with Labour selecting a retread Remainer candidate who lost his nearby seat in 2019.
I should add that, while Labour has held this seat for a long time, and the Conservatives will loudly trumpet a win, Hartlepool has not been a “safe” Labour seat in recent years, and Brexit has been a significant issue here for years.
In 2019, the (then sitting) Labour MP won by just shy of 3,600 votes ahead of the Conservatives, but the Brexit Party was third with 10,600. If they’d all voted for the Conservative candidate, he’d have won by nearly 7,000 votes. It is not a new thing: UKIP came second in 2015 with 11,000 votes, just 3,000 behind the (previous sitting) Labour MP, with the Conservatives third on 8,000. While Peter Mandelson won stonking majorities here two decades ago, but the Lib Dems came close to winning a by-election in 2004, losing by just 2,000 votes.
As you say, this seat has had a right-wing majority for a long time
The only problem is Farage has quit
I don’t think it is helpful to label thousands of the voters of Hartlepool as “far right”. Labour won by 7,500 in 2017, head of the Conservatives on 14,300 and UKIP only got 4,500, so their are not all fascists.
I don’t know the place well, but I suspect they suffered rather a lot in the 1980s and 1990s, Labour (particularly the party apparatchiks in London) took them for granted for too long, and they were fertile ground for a message of “taking back control” from bureaucrats in Brussels. And in due course I suspect they will become disillusioned when they don’t get the results they hoped for.
You have to be pretty far right to vote Tory, Brexit or UKIP
I am respecting these people’s agency
Well, let me put it this way. The turnout in Hartlepool was around 50,000 in each election up to 1992, but since then around 40,000. Labour has won 50-60% of the votes in a good year, and around 40% in a bad year, but the opposition was split each time so they won.
In the last four elections (2019, 2017, 2015, 2010):
* Labour won each time with 15,500, nearly 22,000; 14,000; and 16,000.
* Conservatives achieved 12,000; 14,000; 8,000; and 11,000.
* The Brexit Party polled 10,600 in 2019; but UKIP only got 4,800 votes in 2017, down from 11,000 in 2015, and under 3,000 in 2010.
So the combined “right wing” vote was 22,600, 18,800, 19,000 and 14,000. (Note, they could have won in 2019 and 2015, just as the Lib Dems could have won in 2004.)
So, if we take the base Labour support as around 14,000, and the base Conservative support at about 8,000 (and I don’t consider them all to be fascists, notwithstanding the demeanour of the current government), there are about 10,000 to 12,000 people in the middle who could potentially vote either way. They lent their votes to the Brexit Party last time, and way well slosh over to the Conservatives this time, but that is by no means permanent.
In 2010, the Lib Dems got 6,000, having been up at 10,000 the previous two elections challenging for the seat (which they could have won in 2004) but have now essentially disappeared.
Seriously, 30,000 of the 35,000 votes in 2005 were for Labour and Lib Dem. What happened? I suspect the Coalition killed the Lib Dems (why vote for Tory-lite when you can have the real thing, or vote for a distinctive alternative?) and now Brexit is killing Labour.
But things might be very different if turnout return to something closer to 75% than 50%. Go and vote, people!
I hadn’t planned to vote this week, for the first time in my life. Now you’ve made me wonder what I would do if voting were compulsory. Only the two main parties are standing in my ward. The Tories would never get my vote anyway but haven’t even bothered to leaflet us. I strongly disagree with Labour policy at both national and local level.
Neither party has approached us at all about the PCC elections so both expect us to vote on party lines, where party policy should matter least.
Does a spoilt ballot count toward mandatory voting? We need the “None of the above” option and a re-ballot with different candidates if it wins.
I used to wonder why people spirit their papers
Now I do not
Would I vote Labour with a peg on my nose in your case?
Probably
Richard B,
I encourage you to spoil your ballot paper if you don’t want to lend your vote to any of the parties/candidates.
A spoilt ballot paper can’t be written off as apathy or disengagement from politics in the same way that staying at home can.
I suspect if mandatory voting and ‘none of the above’ were on our voting cards this Thursday, then this option would get a very good turnout. And it would be very difficult for either party to spin a victory as a resounding endorsement of whatever policy they happen to be promoting.
I absolutely agree with Thomas Alexander on this one.
Please, please, please, don’t not vote.
A spoilt ballot is still a legitimate vote and is the only way to voice dissatisfaction at the ballot box. Non-voting counts as non-participation and is basically self-disenfranchisement. It always concerns me that so few people are aware of this.
But also, if you are going to spoil your ballot, make sure you do it properly – i.e. make sure you mark ALL of the available candidates.
As a cautionary tale… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-32658907
I was particularly drawn to this phrase in today’s Guardian by Polly Toynbee when she quoted Albert Einstein:
“The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.”
Accordingly I will be voting Labour tomorrow even though I am a resident in a Tory stronghold.
I live in a constituency where the Tory MP, one Liddell – Grainger is often referred to as Liddell Stranger due to his low visibilty yet he got 62% of the vote. He never even acknowledged my two letters and three emails on the EU debate.
I often wonder why he continues to be elected. My conclusion is that people elect the party, not the person and people’s attitudes are ‘nudged’ by the way news is reported. People do not recall the detail but remember the reaction. Speaking to a couple of my family who read the Mail. I mention someone who is not well regarded by the newspaper and their reaction is ‘oh, them’. If that is the first response, it is unlikely they will then listen objectively, more like think of reasons to dismiss them. Probably they vote to keep them out, although one of did vote for a Liberal Democrat in Scotland on the grounds he was also an ex policeman and kept his consutltunces well informed.. Didn’t Cameron have a nudge unit?
A few times (I admit I could be over generalising) I have listened to neighbours who are very against several things the Conservatives are doing. When I said ‘will you vote Lib Dem or Labour?’ their reply is “no” because of some statement on something not of great importance and often not recent.
They also, it has to be said, repeat things as ‘common knowledge’ , for example, in the talks over fishing ‘the French will try to screw us, they always do’, or ‘they don’t tell us how they would pay for it’ or ‘the unions will try to stop that’.
These are themes promoted by politicians’ statements where we hear the headline but not the argument.
We live in a time of 24/7 news and instant comment on twitter and social media where often one sees a person’s uninformed bigotry treated as equal to the opinion of some who offers an informed and reasoned argument.
Simon Wren Lewis asserts Brexit would not have happened without the tabloid press.
It seems part of the answer to my wondering is powerful vested interests decided they needed to capture the media, in the case of the BBC, intimidate it with a threat of witholding money, and, just make sure, appointing their placemen.
What is the answer? A minority of us can use blogs like this and we can research for ourselves using the web, whereas in the 1970s news was pre-processed. Varoufakis insists we need our own non Oligarch media.
It will not be enough. The Labour candidate here in 2017 was a friend and the Lib Dem candidate in 2019 was a former colleague and friend. They are or were both councillors. If we had PR it would open up the field.
Finally, although we need sound arguments, we have to realise that Tories address the emotional. We need to address values with a good story. Think how Wesley preached to the poor.
In counselling I confirmed the truth that once people can see another way, they are prepared to change.
As you say, Richard, we have to live in hope.
Agree with much there.
In a social media driven society, the Tories have been quickest to understand how to (a) destroy Labour’s brand and (b) deflect criticism through whataboutery, both in a way that dominates the pub and workplace talk that forms opinion amongst low information voters. They have destroyed Labour’s brand by focusing on basic issues of respect and rebranding it as wokism and by demonising individual politicians, the latter of course has always been their stock in trade.
I think the answer is to look to the west and understand the electoral coalition that brought Biden’s win. I suspect parts of the ‘red wall’ are lost for a generation, but opportunities lie in the suburbs. Labour needs to create a vision aimed at these places, that will motivate the young and reassure the old. It will not do that until the Labour left and centre understand that they are part of on tradition and bury the hatchet. At the moment the Labour centre seems to believe it is the mid 1990s again. It is not. It is time for a much bolder offer, with real radicalism at its heart.
You have Green candidates in Ely for both district and county elections.
Not for all the elections in which I can vote
Yes, you will have to hold your nose for the metro mayor and PCC elections.
Well Richard I have voted for both the council elections and the PCC, although I originally wasn’t going to bother with either. I voted for the Green candidate for my ward because:
1) The Green candidate is a trustee of a local wildlife site I use every day to walk our dogs, and a member of the Trust board of a local charity, the Boxmoor Trust.
2) I know this because the Greens actually bothered to leaflet my street (the Tories are the only others to do so) . And on his leaflet, the candidate noted that there are local Green party councillors in nearby Berkhamsted, St Albans and Aylesbury. Much to my surprise, especially in wealthy ‘vote tory till Doomsday Berkhamsted’. Some glimmers of hope perhaps?
I don’t suppose he’s got a chance against the sitting Tory councillor in Hemel, but the fact that the Greens made the effort has changed my mind about voting.
3) And I voted on the PCC election because the voting system is not FPTP, but the Supplementary vote system.
🙂
We live in a quorate world where many things cannot happen without a satisfactory level of participation. Not keen on mandatory vote (see examples of reasons above) but what about setting a 70 per cent participation rate, below which no one gets elected and the vote is null and void. Agree that any system should be coupled with PR. If this had been in place, no Brexit.
If you can’t be bothered to vote, no politician would be elected.
Danny Dorling pointed out that were a form of PR adopted, it would almost certainly result in a split in the Labour and Conservative parties rather that the current ‘broad churches’
Good
I’m sure both Labour and Conservative leaderships are aware of this, which gives them another reason for keeping FPTP.
I also think there should be a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballot for any election or some other option that says ‘I want to vote but not for any of these candidates’.
Craig
Don’t forget that mandatory voting implies automatic voter registration.
I still always find it remarkable how many people are not even registered to vote…
If you spoil your paper, the party monitors will see it. They are all checked and confirmed as spoilt or argued over by the electoral officials and party representatives and candidates. So the message can come back.
I would propose non compulsory voting, but a £10 note given to every voter. A fraction of the cost of QE.
Definitely a none of the above box, with candidates barred from standing for five years if it wins.
I will vote Green this week even though it is wasted vote in my Tory dominated area. Why? Because I know the Green candidate personally and he’s a decent man.
If I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t vote at all.
Labour – as far as I’m concerned , they’re dead. They don’t stand for anything at all that I can see. They’re the epitome of Snyder’s ‘Inevitability Politics’: stick a fork in their arse, they’re done.
I wasn’t going to vote at all, probably for the first time since I was able to vote. The only election here is for Police Commissioner, and it isn’t clear to me they are meaningful posts for election to, and certainly not whether they should be aligned to party politics.
But being in a Tory area I don’t want apathy to mean Friday’s headlines are about support for the government – and besides from the little information available (BBC website, no campaigning on the ground) it looks as if both the Labour or LibDem candidates are better qualified than the Tory anyway. So I will probably cast my vote.
Anecdotal I know but where I live I’ve seen no posters. There has been nothing through the door. And looking at websites for local newspapers I’ve found it hard to find anything. Most I’ve found on the County Council and PCC elections here is an active Labour Facebook account. But that’s it.
I’m in Suffolk. Therese Coffey the MP. Very safe Tory council.
There is almost nothing in Cambridgeshire either
I doubt I have seen more than five posters on the usual sites in fields arloind here that the Tories always use
I have 3 Green posters in my front windows to ensure none goes past without noticing. In a road of 160 houses, there are no other posters at all for other parties/independents or in the adjacent streets. Not expecting a landslide Green victory though but hope for an increase in the Green vote.
It is not all doom and gloom. I’ve had several (unwanted) doorstep visits and (wanted) pieces of literature, but then after 16 years of stability, the absentee Brexiteer Tory MP lost this heavily Remain-voting parliamentary seat in 2019 (and the new MP is doing a great job from what I can see). My local council seat is pretty marginal and has changed back and forth several times too in recent years. And there is a good chance the single Green on our council may keep his seat. So.
You are the voter who counts!!!!
That’s good news Andrew, it’s nice to know there is a bit of it around. Lucky you, your vote will count. I doubt mine will surrounded as I am by ex-council house Tory voters, who, if they can bothered at all, will vote for the current Tory councillor. Who to be fair, having met her out canvassing, strikes me as a decent woman who believes in serving the community in the often thankless task of councillor.
You know you are in a marginal seat when you get several pieces of literature through the door on polling day. I think that is the third or fourth note in the last few weeks from the Conservatives. Similar volume from the Lib Dems. Nice glossy A4 leaflet from Labour too. The latter trying to take a seat from the former, to match the other two in the ward they already hold. Greens pushing hard in some other seats but not here. Probably will remain NOC.
Highest number of registered electors EVER for a Scottish parliamentary election, apparently….
https://www.emb.scot/news/article/21/record-number-of-voters?fbclid=IwAR2EQaph_em0gShhLZ0cKgTVHpkSRXYnb5ZfcCd1Ek2eAp6-ArhA2ep6bZM
I think Jonathan Pie probably nails it here…..
https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/519905869015507
Personally I will vote because there will always be someone better than the tories however imperfect. Like many here I long for a change to the voting system and I dearly wish Labour would enter into a progressive alliance whatver the range of views…so toxic is this government.