In fact nothing's ever been much of an option where I live because I'm a left wing liberal and I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country. Liam Fox is our MP. For all the years I've been eligible to vote, my vote has never counted, because I've always lived in a safe Tory constituency, as a student, in my parent's house, then in Leicester now down near Bristol.
So the first bit of my voting today was easy. Yes to AV. I know it's a halfway house, it's not full PR. But as someone whose vote has never counted and has always been thrown into a big bin with the spoiled ballots and the hanging chads (okay, we don't have hanging chads, but I like to picture them there in the big bin, it makes it seem less lonely), any move which is likely to make my vote count just an iota more can only be a good thing. People like me, Labour voters in rural England, are like Tory voters in Scotland, or Green voters anywhere. We want something that'll make us feel like we count. And we know we'll lose and be ignored. Yet still we vote. I think we might be mental.
These are the Socks. They play Farnham tomorrow and Brighton at the weekend. Come.
The next part of my vote was harder, who should I pick for the local council election? Last time I voted it was the General Election and we were all disappointed by our Labour government and, godammit, it looked like these spunky little Lib Dems might just make some sort of difference. So, throwing caution to the wind, I voted Lib Dem for the first time ever. Okay, I know now. Liam Fox increased his majority in my constituency which just adds insult to the injury of my vote which now looks so craven, twattish, and even more pointless than all my previous wasted votes.
So today, bouyed up by their excellent "Stand Up" Election Broadcast, I went along today deciding to vote Green.
The choices on my ballot were Tory or Labour.
Sigh.
Kev F
1 comment:
Yep, that pretty much sums up my experience in Wokingham too...
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