Tag: politics

Why I won’t be voting BNP on May 6th

“THINK; Do you really want to vote for despicable parasites who prey on the innocent people?”


….screams the headline of the HAVERING PATRIOT, the local BNP party’s leaflet stuffed through my door.  “Of which despicable parasites do you speak?”, I ask.  Luckily the leaflet provides examples.  Reading though, and  roughly checking the allegations presented, I would broadly have to agree with them that, no, I am unlikely to want to vote for any of them. Of the 17 people listed:

Three I will not vote for because:

  • They are Conservative candidates.
  • They are not standing in my constituency, I couldn’t vote for them if I wanted to.

Thirteen I will not vote for because:

  • They are Labour candidates.
  • They are not standing in my constituency, I couldn’t vote for them if I wanted to.

The remaining candidate is Frank Beck, (actually, they say Becks), a Liberal Democrat and thus escaping the first sorting, but I still won’t be voting for him for three compelling reasons.

  1. He’s not standing in my constituency, I couldn’t vote for him even if I wanted to.
  2. He’s not standing for election at all, this makes voting for him tricky.
  3. He’s dead.  The final and most fatal nail in the coffin.

I read the leaflets, 3 of them, quite carefully.  (Often painfully, as it seems spell checking and basic grammar were clearly less important than wiping all the rabid foam off). Some of the new words and phrases invented are quite good,  though I think they’ll have trouble with “tri-axis of treason”, quite a few people nouned that before them. The presentation is a confusing mix of random italics, bits in bold for no `real` good reason, odd font sizes, varieties of quotes in which the most mundane axioms are headlined at you. “Vote BNP, The party made of real Men and Women.”  Well, err, yes, I accept you’re probably real, can’t fault you on that one.

They have a picture of some kind of machine pistol on the leaflet.  None of the text in any way refers to this picture.

One of the leaflets states two alledged facts.

“Fact #1: The Conservative Party, the Labour party and the Liberal-Democrats all want Turkey to join the EU.”

On the face of it, this seems broadly true.

“Fact #2: The BNP is the only party which opposes Turkish membership of the EU and the Islamification of Britain.”

Oh really?  (Emphasis mine).  I confess I’m struggling to find a link between Turkey joining the EU and the  likelyhood of Britain being swayed en masse to convert to Islamic culture.  I like bacon, sorry.

Please do vote on May 6th, please don’t vote for the BNP.

Please vote on May 6th

I don’t often make public political statements, and saying “please vote on may 6th” probably isn’t one really.   However, it is vitally important that you, the enfranchised public, get off your apathetic arses and make it to the polling station this coming May 6th.

According to this information almost 4 people in 10 eligible to vote chose not to bother to do so. Oh there will be a few spoiled ballots in there but most of that 40% will simply have not bothered.  That’s shocking.

I do feel Australia has this nearly right.  It’s compulsory to vote there.  You can turn up and spoil your ballot, I understand drawing pictures of penises on the form is common, but the point is that you do show up, or you get a fine.  It’s not much, personally I’d be quite happy with the penalty for not voting without good reason is having your right to vote removed thus making my vote worth that tiny bit more, but it’s better than what we have now.

Why turn up just to spoil your ballot?  Well if the result of the election show that 40% voted “none of the above” then that’s a clear message to the politicians that their policies and performance are not appealing to a significant proportion of voters. Maybe it’ll make them wonder why we’re not interested in supporting them.

Another reason you should vote is not to get a candidate in, but to keep a candidate out.  The BNP got power not so much because people voted them in, but because people didn’t vote against them.  We do not need the BNP in this country. Where you have a BNP candidate standing, and you have no preference, voting for anyone else is better than you not voting at all.

Me?  I’ll be voting Liberal Democrat this year, as I have done in every election I have been able to take part in.  I don’t think Nick Clegg is the best LibDem leader ever, I also do think him doing well in the leadership debate was nearly inevitable.  Only a complete cock-up could have done anything but boost the LibDem’s cause.  If I felt either a Labour or Conservative government were really able to sort things out, I’d be voting them in.  I have lived my entire life under either a Conservative or Labour government, things are not going all that well.  No-one voted for our current Prime Minister. Can the LibDems really do any worse?

You may not think it matters who you vote for, I would disagree. But really, really, it does matter that you do vote.

Please vote on May 6th.