Here we are! It is ‘Election Day’, and for one day only, the political future of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is in the hands of the people holding the polling booth pencil.
Every UK citizen, aged 18 or over, is entitled to register with the electoral commission.
Only those who registered are entitled to cast a vote today.
At a practical level, only those arriving at their allocated polling station – unless of course you have already voted by post – with the appropriate photo ID will receive a voting paper listing the candidates from whom they can choose one, and only 67.3 per cent of those registered to vote in the UK election did so in 2019.
Interestingly, if these things hold any interest for you to start with, the participation was more than 5 per cent lower in Northern Ireland, at 62.03 per cent.
The outlier was Fermanagh/South Tyrone, with almost 70 per cent of its voters turning up on the day to do their citizen duty.
It will be interesting to see how the percentages hold up following what can fairly accurately be described as the traumatic experiences of the UK population since the last election in 2019.
To date, each inflation crisis in modern times has been followed by a change of government.
This one will be no different, even though Keir Starmer’s policies sound much the same to me as those that have failed to work since way back in 2010.
Electing a government led by Boris Johnston in 2019 should have given us fair warning that the future might not be good.
Entertaining perhaps, if it hadn’t accelerated the rate of emptying our purses, piggy banks, stomachs, and taking the roof from over our heads, but clearly not a collective decision in society’s best interest on any sane, adult and sober analysis.
On this side of ‘the seugh’, we are spared the soul searching of making a call between a Labour party turned Conservative, and a Conservative party turned into enough factions to make even a Trotskyist jealous.
Our choices might be said to be ‘nailed down’, if that means ‘set in stone from time immemorial’, or at least since Partition.
Supporting the electorate to risk a diversion from the traditional route is not helped by the antiquated X-marks-the-spot approach to choosing the least offensive offering.
If you had seen the USA Presidential Candidate debate which aired across the USA recently, you would realise things could be worse, and be really, really worried about the direction of travel of electoral representative democracy.
While the voices of young USA citizens predominate in the demand for an end to what I believe is genocide in Gaza, and to American’s military expansionism, more than half those entitled to vote are unregistered.
In 2022, only 49.1 per cent of 18- to 24 -year-olds in the USA were registered to vote in that year, with 77.9 per cent of people aged between 65 and 74 years old registered, and 76 per cent of those even older; i.e., in the same age bracket as both presidency candidates.
‘Between a rock and a hard place’ just doesn’t cut it for that dilemma
The only thing scarier than the messianic criminal on the one side was the realisation that the Zionist on the other was within a rigorous examination’s breadth of a declaration of incompetence through increasing senility.
With his finger still being the one on the Nuclear War button, and the election nearly a hundred days away, there must surely be a doctor in the house!
*****
I don’t know how many people listen to the BBC’s Nolan Show. I am definitely not one of them.
I may even hold the record for that – no kidding!
One of the downsides of never listening to BBCNI Radio Ulster after 8.59 on any week day is that those in the know about my allergic reaction to the programme feel compelled to relate the detail of something I have missed and might, in their opinion of my warped sense of humour, have enjoyed.
This is how I came to know about the recent caller who ‘waxed ineloquent’ and at great length on his reason for definitely not voting in this election.
I understand that Mr. Nolan was on leave, and the personable guy who stands in was fielding the calls.
[Note: I have no independent knowledge on the degree of personable-ness of the guy, or whether it is greater or less than that of the absent Mr. Nolan, so no inferences should be drawn from the received comment that I might consider Mr. Nolan as not personable, and take offence. None is intended.]
Anyway, for anyone else who missed it, the caller’s main reason was that he was done with wasting his vote when it didn’t make any difference.
The country was governed by a mandatory coalition, which meant that he wasn’t choosing a government at all.
Yer man, the caller, pointed out all the ills that had arisen as a result of a mandatory coalition, warming to his theme, on which he was well-informed, uninterrupted by the personable replacement for the (equally personable, I am sure) regular host.
Finally, when he had aired all his grievances about mandatory coalition using the phrase repeatedly, and run out of words, the stand-in guy politely informed him that this was a Westminster, not a Stormont, election.
That bit of information had somehow eluded him!
I imagine he’ll review his position and vote TUV.
*****
Whatever else you do today, exercise your right to vote.
Vote in good conscience that whatever it is you want for yourself, you are willing to afford to your worst enemy.
Choose the candidate you honestly believe will help those worse off than yourself, as diligently as you expect them to help you.
Vote for the candidate whose position stands up to being interrogated and still makes sense; vote for integrity and humanity; for courage and honesty; for a better, kinder world and sustainable planet.
If you can’t see a candidate that measures up, just write ‘None of the above’, or make one big X across the paper – but don’t stay home and do nothing.
Nothing in the world was ever changed for the better by doing that.
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