UK Election 2010

The people of Britain spoke on the 6^th May, but did the politicians listen?  The media said that the people gave a mixed message, by not giving any party a clear majority.  I say the message was clear, the British people have no faith in any one party any more and that they are not represented by the politicians of today. The people were saying that they need to work together to get us out of this recession.  We are fed up with in party fighting and we need the politicians to work for Britain and put personal greed and power to one side. For a moment we held our breath, a full coalition was talked about. But then deals were struck behind closed doors, offering power to greedy politicians, and we are back again to a government that most people didn’t want, or vote for. No one voted for a Conservative, Liberal government.  The media is saying that there was no pattern to the voting and it is difficult to draw a conclusion.  I say look again, the pattern is clear and the politicians again have failed to get the message.

The first thing that strikes anyone that looks at the political map of Britain is the north, south divide.  In Northern Britain the majority of people voted labor or Scottish National, in fact the Scottish people only returned one Conservative MP, yet they are now being ruled, in part by, a parliament they didn’t vote for.  Where is the democracy in that?  Another pattern that seems to be apparent to me is that any MP named and shamed in the expenses scandal, lost. If you don’t know about this scandal it was when MP’s claimed on their expenses such things as duck houses, mortgages that were already paid for and many other items that the MP’s said they needed to do their jobs.  If you want to look at the full list click the link below.  I warn you if you are a British tax payer you will get cross.

Of course you could only see a voting pattern if you could vote to begin with, this fundamental right was denied to thousands of people. In Norfolk, around 50 people, who were turned away from the polling station, staged a sit-in. Police were also called in to a number of other places as voters complained they were unable to vote. This happened in Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester and in several parts of London. Why has this happened in a modern country like Britain? Mainly because our voting system was created in the past and has never been updated. When the secret ballot was first introduced in 1872, hardly anyone had the right to vote, so opening polling stations until 10pm was more than enough time for the electorate to exercise their franchise. Now, with shift workers and many people in retailing working late into the evening, the system is fatally flawed and is in chronic need of modernization. Though this was not the only problem, Candidates in Wavertree Liverpool may have missed out on vital votes when four polling stations in the constituency ran out of ballot papers As well as voting in the general election, some people were also voting for local counselors. Local election counts began at 9am, and the initial result for Avonmouth Bristol, showed a Tory win by a margin of 10 votes. However, a box of misplaced votes were suddenly discovered, which put a new light on matters. A recount brought the number of votes between the two leading candidates to a tie – 1,878 a piece. This forced a further recount by the council's returning officer, who sent the dozen volunteer counters to another room to have another crack at it. But by 2pm the counters had come back with the same result, so council officers began a search of the building for a dozen fresh volunteers for a further recount. By 4.30pm the new counters returned their result, this time with one vote different, although it was for a minor candidate that did not affect the overall result and was later accounted for. After four recounts and nearly eight hours the returning officer, told both candidates he did not think a further recount was reasonable. He gave the two candidates the option for a fifth re-count, but they declined and agreed to draw names out of a hat. So they wrote their names on folded pieces of paper and placed them into a black voting box. The returning officer then drew the winner from the box in front of around 40 people.

We have a coalition government, the first since the war, and let’s face it, this economic crisis could bring down a country as sure as if it was a war.  However, unlike the war this is a coalition between the largest party and the third place party, a very unequal partnership and already it feels as if one side is perhaps being bullied by the other. The next year will see the global markets very volatile and our coalition will have to make some very unpopular decisions. Promising a higher tax threshold to the poor, and tax cuts to the rich, as usual it is us in the middle that get nothing. A minister in the new government said, ‘it is time for the British people to roll up their sleeves and get to work.’ Well I don’t know what he’s being doing, but the rest of us have been working as hard as we can all the time. It seems to me that the out going government passed the poison challis of power to two very power hungry parties.  If they get this wrong, it will be a long time before the electorate feels confident to vote for either again. Already a lot of people who voted Liberal democrat are regretting their choice, as many did it to keep out the Conservatives: Especially in seats where they were the main rivals. Only last week when David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, was asked,”did he know any jokes?’ He answered “Yes, Nick Clegg:’ the man who now he is heralding as his new deputy Prime Minister. With rising unemployment, high debts, high crime rates, a depressed housing market, low standards in our schools and health services and now, a disillusioned electorate thrown into the mix, I feel there is big trouble ahead.