Friday, February 23, 2024

How to vote in the UK general election

You may know how you're going to vote already of course. Though most of us are not prepared to admit it to pollsters, most of us know and have always known already, from the distant days when the vote started to be extended to what is called 'the common man'. 

Roughly speaking, common men voted against the toffs and the toffs voted for the Tories. In other words, your class decided your vote. 

After WWII, and particularly after Tony Blair, psephologists - big word, simple meaning: psephology is the study of elections - psephologists began to notice that not all Labour voters wore a cloth cap and not everyone who voted Tory wore a top hat. 

A new and perplexing explanation for our voting conduct began to emerge: people voted according to their "values", the two apparently most significant values being economic values and social values.

Now economic values are tough enough to find a way through. Most of us think there's something to be said for soaking the rich (except most of the rich of course), and every political party promises to cut taxes while raising public services to heights never before dreamed of. Divisive ideas from way back.

But these divides are nothing beside the open war caused by social values, the countless issues that bring out our moral differences. 

Must the state care more, or will need and want be left to charity again? Flout women's rights and stop abortion? Will harsher punishments fix crime, or greater compassion? Should we let 'them' in or send 'them' all back to where they came from? Are freeports a good thing for the economy and strikes wrecking it? Who are the bad guys, Russia or America? Should we 'rejoin'? - the Customs Union? the Single Market? the EU? Time for 'the people' to come together and stop wars.

No wonder so many of us say we don't know how to vote, even if we'll end by giving up and voting as usual, or not voting at all. 

Only 1 in 20 voters switched their vote from one of the major parties to the other one in the 2017 UK election. A minority of 1 in 10 are classified as "Apathetic" in political terms and don't vote. And why is not voting an answer? Not voting plainly makes no social or economic difference and leaves the individual as frustrated as ever after a gesture no one knows about.

You think things are bad. You're disillusioned with politics because all politicians are the same and nothing will change whoever wins.

What makes you certain of that? If things didn't change, we wouldn't have arrived at this low point now. And if this is the low point it seems to be, why is the only possible direction of travel down?

What is certain is change, and change is the only thing certain. That's why our two imperfect adversaries Mr Sunak and Mr Starmer both promise it. They know change happens even when they work to stop it. And it's why you haven't got the impossible decision you thought.

Stop giving yourself a bad time over the crisis and the way politicians can't be trusted to do something about it. If you're right on that, and if you haven't decided already, the only decision you have to make on how to vote is who you trust least.



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