NOT VOTING

My friend and occasional blogger “Hoppy” got annoyed enough last week to take to his keyboard and write a very well argued piece about why everyone really ought to take the time and make the effort to vote in any and all of the democratic elections which we are lucky enough to be allowed to have in this allegedly “free” country we live in. If you get a moment, click on this link (http://thehoppyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/death-of-democracy.html) and have a look, because he makes a lot of very good points, none of which I could either add to or argue with, even though the nature of “democracy” has taken a bit of a battering lately with what some of our more self-serving MPs did with their expenses, and with the amount of integrity that seems to have been thrown away by the prospect of having even the merest sniff of a chance of power…

However, with all that in mind, I have to hold up my hand and confess that, in the end, I didn’t actually end up voting in the PCC Elections, which means that, whatever happens, I suppose that I can’t really complain at the outcome, and this is coming from me who has been terribly and tediously “vocal” about the reasons people “ought to” vote on numerous previous occasions.

Not that anyone really takes my opinions on anything all that seriously, but at least I used to try, even if it always seemed as if I was only talking to myself…

It’s amazing what it is that can persuade us back to the keyboard in order to get a few thoughts off our collective chests, although, like with many other things, I’m sure that the rumours of the “death” of democracy have been greatly exaggerated, even if it’s struggling a little at the moment.

Mind you, because of that confession above, perhaps I don’t have much right to explain myself, but, because we do live in a democratic nation (no thanks to me…) I am able to explain myself anyway, and explain the reasons why, for the first time in my adult life, I didn't actually take part in an election I was eligible to vote in.

My bad.

Ironically, and despite the fact that I did actually turn up to vote on that occasion, the only other election that I failed to vote in was the 1997 Labour landslide. I’d moved house that year and, for some reason, I managed to slip off the Electoral Register that year without even noticing, so that my name simply wasn’t on the list, much to my own personal despair. I stayed up half the night to see the results coming in that night, too, but I couldn’t claim any personal involvement in the first genuine sea-change in hue of the government I was living under in my entire adult life that far.

I did, of course, have my reasons, this time around, as I’m sure, many others felt they did too, although I’m starting to feel a bit bad about it now. Granted, I’d already left for work when the polling stations opened on that icy November morning, and, because of the way the day was organised, it was well after eight-thirty at night before I was heading homewards having done my evening run to the railway station, but it was still open at that time, and it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to park up and pop in for a couple of minutes, and even though I had managed to do some  “last-minute” research that day, neither of us felt that we knew enough about it to be able to make a calm and rational decision instead of taking a rather more random “what the hell” approach…

Perhaps the main problem was that when the polling cards turned up, this was the very first I’d heard about the elections themselves, despite them being a cornerstone of a manifesto that I was never likely to have paid all that much attention to. Those polling cards were also the very last paperwork we received about it as well, so we kind of kept on forgetting that it was actually happening. When I finally was reminded, it was simply because someone mentioned it on the radio as I was driving to work that day, and the five candidates I was able to track down on the internet at lunchtime seemed to be a very dismal bunch, none of whom inspired any confidence really.

Three were very “party political” and the other two were “independents” one of whom didn’t actually seem as if he thought the whole thing was a very good idea, and the other of whom looked as if he was trying rather too hard to appeal to the “yoof” vote in his open-necked plaid shirt. The three “officially backed” candidates all explained in their brief paragraphs that they were either the sort of “businessman” I would cross several streets to avoid engaging with, someone from UKIP (’nuff said…), or someone who seemed far more interested in telling the electorate how many children and grandchildren he had than in telling us what he had in mind.

The “granddad” won in the end, so maybe that kind of campaigning is the most effective if you’re looking for the “family” vote…?

Perhaps I ought really to have been paying more attention, not least because households like mine, which live in the crispy bits at the very edges of the cornflake that is the catchment area of our constabulary, at the edges of the rim, are seldom approached for our opinions about anything very much. More often than not we find that we are ineligible for support from certain official bodies which are just a couple of miles away but in another authority’s area, and instead get referred to “our” version of the same thing which might be based somewhere half a county away or sometimes as far away as Greater Birmingham. This happens with things like bus services, ambulance services, hospital trusts and more esoteric things like Arts grants, but is equally problematical if you ring up and need the assistance of a constable with some urgency.

This might be because with us being so close to the boundaries, several of the surrounding authorities would rather consider us to be “somebody else’s problem” it would seem, which kind of really means that I ought to have paid more attention. After all, if none of us could be bothered about what happens to us, why on Earth should they…?

I did, however, enjoy taking part in this little exchange which took place on FizzBok on the day of the vote:-

CN: One of my PCC candidates says he will ‘ensure that the anti-social neighbour and the local yob know the police will stop them from terrorising our communities.’ I hope these two people have been suitably warned.

MAWH: I finally remembered this was happening and, because we’ve had absolutely no information at all about our local election, went and looked up who our five actually are, and what a dismal bunch they turned out to be. One of them seemed to be most interested in telling the world how many grandchildren he has (which I’m sure will be the most important aspect of the job), but he had one of those faces which ought never to be photographed smiling, so he’s off the list. As are the other four, apparently...

CN: Sounds like you have a pretty similar selection to us. I also couldn’t bring myself to vote for the one with the moustache who is going to improve safety on the ‘busses’.

MAWH: There's one who looks a bit like Michael Emerson on “Person of Interest” who looks like the least worst option, but I would still worry about his secret super computer and what he might do with it...

CN: That could indeed be a worry. I hope he will use his super computer to tackle the local yob.

MAWH: To be fair, if there’s only the one, and he (or she) is THAT well known, it shouldn’t take a super computer to track them down... You see...? It’s saving us all money already...!

CN: Another little gem: ‘For the first time ever, one person will be responsible for policing and crime.’

MAWH: You mean... they’re putting the yob in charge...?

CN: It seems so. I think his name was Lex Luthor.

MAWH: or Professor James Moriarty...?