Will we ever forgive our Governments?

[YossarianUK]

The sad news for the conspiracy theorists is that all I have ever found (as I wander around the corridors of power - both in local government and national government) is greater evidence of cockup rather than conspiracy.

Have to agree. When working away from HQ in the Civil Service, I believed in conspiracy theories. I then worked in HQ and realised that conspiracy involved the top management getting together, agreeing on something, and keeping it quiet.

They would get together, but neither agreement nor silence were ever on the cards.

I would strongly suspect it is the same in government.

[YossarianUK]

If you don't vote then you cannot blame anyone but yourself.

Thats a poor argument, especially with our voting system.

If, and its a big if, there was a party which represented my views, voting for them would make no sense because they would be unlikely to ever gain a seat. Our first past the post system was set up to maintain power, not to give it away to voters.

Labour were only electable once they became Tories.

And, back when I was silly enough to vote Labour, I found myself in the position of having voted in people who were to become, potentially (we wait for international charges), war criminals.

Majority rule doesn't work in mental institutions.

[clv101]

If you don't vote then you cannot blame anyone but yourself.

Thats a poor argument, especially with our voting system.

...voting for them would make no sense because they would be unlikely to ever gain a seat.

This is also a poor argument.

[YossarianUK]

If you don't vote then you cannot blame anyone but yourself.

Thats a poor argument, especially with our voting system.

...voting for them would make no sense because they would be unlikely to ever gain a seat.

This is also a poor argument.

So voting makes sense even though the end result is that your vote is ignored?

When the 3 main parties in Britain all stand for varying flavours of the same thing, what are we to do? Voting, say Green, or, even, BNP, makes no sense because they will not win a seat. What's the point of feeling gratified because the green guy gets a cheer for having 323 votes.

How does voting for the guy with 323 votes make you better suited to complain about government?

If we had actual democracy, with PR, in this country it might be a different question, but we don't.

Even with PR, we have the unbelievable situation where two of the main parties in Scotland (Tories and Lib Dems) do not want any part in coalition government in PR, so we are left with minority government.... The parties which were, just a few weeks ago, campaigning for their manifestos for government, have absolutely no interest in implementing their policies.

Its madness.

If you went into a restaurant and they only served broccoli or brussel sprouts, you'd vote with your feet and head somewhere else. Why is this different because its different flavours of privatisation/capitalism we're being sold in "our" "democracy"?

[kenneal - lagger]

If you believe in something, don't just vote for it, go out and convince people it's right. Then stand in an election. If we don't participate, we get the government we deserve.

Not enough engineers and technical people stand for parliament so we get all the lawyers and accountants, and now, the full time politicians ruling us to their own benefit. If there were a few more engineers in government, we might have had some more sensible decisions on global warming and its mitigation measures.

[biffvernon]

In about 35 years I've never missed voting in an election (and even stood in one) but I've never managed to vote for a winning candidate.

Of course the only time you vote counts is when yours is the casting vote in an otherwise tied election. That never happens so there is never any point in voting.

[Vortex]

The ONLY time I feel that my vote counted was in the recent local elections.

I had to vote Lib-Dem (puke!) but at least the long standing Tory was kicked out.

My whole family voted Lib-Dem to do this ... and the election majority was 5 !!!

That will teach an elected councillor to simply ignore the wishes of her electors in order to support local "big business".

One tiny, tiny step for democracy ....

[isenhand]

Perhaps people would rally round, show the "Blitz" spirit, and sort things out.

You really think the people would have a clue what to do