(The author whole heartedly admits that he is in no way an expert and simply irritated with not being represented and poking fun at the UKIPs voters & Nick Cleggs backstabbing face).
Much anger has been seen in the wake of the 2015 general elections with the lack of proportional representation (PR) and the Tories starting their second path of destruction as if it was 1983 all over again. People like myself feel cheated, the good old left is being side lined while the right winged nuts and money obsessed take full power once again.
With only just a fraction over a quarter of overall votes attributed to the Tories this doesn’t represent the country at all.
In 2011 a referendum for the alternative vote (AV) was held and it was largely disapproved of by the electorate. This was mostly because no one understood it and was presented in an incomprehensible manner (I didn’t understand the explanations in the papers or on TV, in fact not until I researched it and watched a video with animals in it, that will make sense later)
Our politicians and media outlets did their utmost to confuse the general public and sadly succeeded.
AV was in theory a good idea but in a country already divided in to two main parties swapping power every 10 years is not so useful. AV and PR are two different systems, both use a ranking systems but AV becomes complicated fairly easily.
Here is someone explaining it using animals (yes the one I watched) to make it easier for our apparent child like minds that don’t like change, hate foreigners and the NHS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
Currently the UK has a system that is outdated and unfair. This is called the first past the post (FPTP) system in which constituencies (people, or robots) vote for an MP (marbled pancakes) when one party has enough they win if they don’t then they go in to coalition with someone willing to give up their values, screw over their electorate for money and power (liberal Democrats historically, not pointing any fingers, Nick Clegg).
AV and other alternative vote methods are nearly all flawed and you end up with a 2 party race just as we see with FPTP. PR is the fair unbiased representation of the opinions and votes of the people. (I know what a “commie” thing to have right, that’s what the UKIPs call us greens, where as they are just NAZIS in purple)
To better understand here is John Cleese explaining the difference between FPTP and PR. Stick with it, he was funny in 1983:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSUKMa1cYHk
Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that even 30 years ago people were campaigning for a system where everybody’s voice is heard? A fair system. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that the rest of Europe has proportional representation in some form or another?
The problem with voting is public understanding, sadly people want to be told what to do rather than find out for themselves. The “I don’t like any of them” statement is a cop out, these people are actually the more liberal and are disillusioned and will not admit they just don’t care anymore. The “voting doesn’t change anything” statement is just false, we can see this in action right now, the least amount of people voting allows for two party domination. I do know some people that genuinely don’t understand the elections, to what capacity they don’t understand I don’t know, I don’t have the patience to explain what they learnt at school again.
So the system and the electorate need to change. Both have solutions, a change to PR and mandatory voting. We also just need to add people to the register if they pay tax, the whole voter registration system is nonsense; it took me 5 attempts to get registered.
How do you get PR in? To me it seems obvious that a referendum is not needed and it should just be implemented straight away. Sadly (for the politicians) this empowers the electorate and MPs know this, asking someone who lives for power to change the voting system so their seat is no longer assured is a sure failure.
So votes don’t count and that is why we live in such an undemocratic country where reasonable people go unheard, the gullible vote for fascists and old people vote for conservatives that no longer represent their (outdated) views.
If you think this is an unfair generalisation of our country and the current election trends; if you are a UKIPs and upset because I called you a NAZI or because I poked fun at Nick Clegg for being Nick Clegg, please address your complaints to the following email address: [email protected]
Tom Brown
