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| Photo: David J Dalley. Available from http://bit.ly/1GIUxB8 |
Politics is
boring. I love politics, but I am aware it's still pretty boring.
There's no
sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in politics - just a bunch of old men in dodgy
suits trying to think of the most interesting way to annoy everyone.
Young
people, in particular, have become so disillusioned with politics in recent
times, that many could scarcely name five of our Prime Ministers. It's probably
because it's simply not cool, and talking about Big Dave or Big Ed won't
exactly earn you the street cred you've always been dreaming of.
It is
undeniable that the 2010 election was the best election for the Liberal
Democrat Party, who then continued to form a coalition government with the
Conservatives, much to much of the public's dissatisfaction. But when the
Liberal Democrats failed to stop the Tories from raising the tuition fees to
£9000, they lost the support of the students (who were responsible for their
biggest vote share).
Politics
here is nothing like America, where it really starts to get interesting, where
published a book and gave out free copies, had intricate posters made and then
turned into T-shirts that could be spotted over the entire globe.
It's no
surprise that people in the UK can often name more US Presidents than Prime
Ministers.
The Daily
Telegraph ran a survey and found that 46% of people didn't know that there was
an election this year, and 69% couldn't even name the Prime Minister!
Turnout for
the last general election wasn't much better as only 65% of all those eligible
to vote did...
If that
doesn't show the public's lack of interest in politics, I'm not quite sure what
does.
The fact of
the matter is quite simple, people don't want to vote. It takes time out of
their day once every five years - time that apparently is too important to them
for them to make a difference to the society we live in.
It's
something that the politicians REALLY need to start discussing, and trying to
find ways to combat it, because democracy is never going to work if there is
such a high percentage of people not voting.
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