Monday, November 13, 2006

Text 8MAJ to vote: cut out the middle man

The ethos at the top of this blog says it all. The nature of UK democracy is such that that a very small proportion of the population aka "the swing vote" can determine who gets into power. The energy of the political parties is thus directed towards various forms of sophisticated gerrymander to switch these vacillators (who are hardly the people who should be determining the fate of us all, eh?) meantime abandoning the voters that form the solid core of the party because they can be trusted to turn up like sheep anyway.

Labour's recent rude awakening to the fact that it has been pandering to minorities for just a bit too long brought a number of its diehards up with a jolt; and the reaction is the now typical one of suggesting legislating the perceived threat of the BNP out of existence. The Tories seemed distinctly non plussed to find the Blair regime yet again doing things with liberty and the constitution that even the most right wing Tory government would have been nervous to suggest.

Meanwhile, the steadfastly irrelevant LibDems twitter on incessantly about proportional representation in the hope that it will give them the casting vote in perpetuity in a perpetually hung parliament - which is possibly the most hopeless and divisive form of minority rule imaginable, and is no assurance that scamps like Berlusconi in Italy are kept away.

The only fair and reasonable way to deal with the issues is to let the people deal with the issues directly. Cut out the middle man. If we are going to be forced to have a big brother ID system, it will be perfectly good enough to support a system of direct voting on just about every major topic. In fact, the people should insist on making weekly referenda a condition of cooperation with this further state intrusion to help redress the balance a little in favour of the serfs, for once?

The Majority Party might even charge the punters - sorry, "voters" - £1 a call to remind them that all decisions and policies have consequences, and thus run the lottery on the back of this weekly vote-in..?

No comments: