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May 04, 2005
My ‘wasted’ vote….
I am aware that I haven’t been posting about the election as much as I should. This is not because I’m trying to be non-political or that I’m being cagey about my vote. It is simply because I have been disturbingly busy and until now I have been deliberating over where my vote is going to go.
I remember posting a while back that ever since I knew the (basic) differences between the Conservatives and Labour, I had been desperate to vote. Back in Labour’s left wing days, my idealistic youth saw Labour as the answer to all the world’s problems.
My first General election was 1997. I sat up all night (back in the days when I could stay awake past 10:30pm) watching the results come through, it felt great to be a part of that landslide victory. Tony Blair told us that ‘things could only get better’ and boy did I lap it all up.
Well if things did get better, I certainly hadn’t noticed by 2001 (even before 9/11). I was living in Brighton then and as a protest against what Labour had become, I voted Socialist Alliance. I wanted to see a party more akin to the one that I had looked up to in my youth.
This year I keep reminding myself that politics is not about personality; a vote for Labour is not necessarily a vote for Tony Blair. (Forgetting the War, a leader who sweats and shakes so violently at the prospect of facing a couple of old ladies and undergraduates on Question Time reeks of liability) Our Labour MP is Anne Campbell and as MPs go, she does her job well. To top it off she appears to be to the Left of the party and was against the war. I happen to believe that Labour will make it back in by the skin of their teeth and if this is the case then is it not my job to make sure that a half decent Labour MP keeps her seat?
Yet if a genie jumped out of a bottle right now and said that I could choose the winner, it would be without doubt the Greens. I heard someone say the other day that in the quagmire that is party politics you have just got to decide what your priorities are. And so I sat down and thought about it really hard and it bothered me for a while because I thought ‘It’s all important’ but then I thought even harder and a light bulb appeared above my head. (Do excuse me. It does take me a while) Sometimes I don’t see the wood for the trees. We all get bogged down with social issues but at the end of the day what use would be a perfect healthcare system, full employment, decent education etc if in a couple of generations time we had no healthy planet to house them all? And besides the idealist in me can’t help but to think that if we look after our environment, everything else would fall into place.
I understand the idea behind tactical voting. Right now Cambridge is neck and neck between the Liberal Democrats and Labour and the argument suggests that I should take my pick between these two, as any other vote will be ‘wasted’ Indeed I know many people who will be voting Labour (or Lib Dem) despite being more inclined to other parties for this very reason. Yet (selfishly perhaps)I can’t help wondering what would be the point of this so called democracy, and more to the point why did Emily Davison get trampled if it wasn’t for me to be able to use my tiny bit of power to support something I truly believe in?
To vote Labour or Liberal Democrat without the backing of my soul would be a wasted vote to me.
Posted by purple elephant at May 4, 2005 09:48 AM