Week 47 2013

Tendring Topics……..on line

‘To Vote or not to Vote….?’

          ….That is the question, about which BBC Radio 4 listeners were debating over the air waves last week.  A great many of them were disillusioned with party politics. They felt felt that they couldn't support any political party having the least chance of forming the next government.  They couldn’t really make up their minds though whether it was better just to stay away from the voting stations, to put a blank ballot paper in the black box or to deliberately spoil the ballot paper by voting for every candidate or by scribbling ‘None of the above’, or perhaps some even ruder message, on the ballot paper.

            As one who has been a Presiding Officer, a humble poll clerk, and a counting assistant at parliamentary and local government elections in the past, I can assure blog readers that how they display their disillusion really makes no difference whatsoever.  If you take no part in the election it won’t be put down to indignation – but apathy.  If you deface your ballot paper, no matter how wisely or wittily, it won’t be seen by anyone more important than the Presiding Officer (probably a school teacher or council official sacrificing a day from his or her holiday entitlement for a few extra quid!) He may well agree with what you have written but he’ll just discard it as a spoilt ballot paper.  These are counted at the end of the day and when it is announced that there were 450 spoilt papers most people won’t think, ‘That means there were 450 principled objectors to the electoral system’, but, ‘That means there must be 450 people so dim-witted that they can’t even manage to put a cross against a name on a piece of paper!’

            I sympathise with all those disillusioned and cynical former-voters.  I’d be inclined to join them – except for the fact that there are groups of electors who do believe in their candidates and who promote their causes with fanatical enthusiasm.  They will turn up at the polling stations and vote, and they’ll try to persuade others to do the same.  These are those that support fringe candidates who have no time whatsoever for the opinion-poll-driven candidates of the main parties.  Some are benign, like those who support the ‘Green Party’. I’d be among them were it not for the certainty that, in this area at least, their candidates stand no chance whatsoever under the first-past-the-post electoral system used in British parliamentary and local elections.

            Others are, I believe, much less benign though probably more appealing to a cynical and disillusioned electorate. Supporters of UKIP, United Kingdom Independence Party, are united in their delusion that most of the UKs troubles derive from our membership of the European Union and that leaving the Union would supply an instant remedy.  They also – just like Clacton’s MP - believe that if global climate change is occurring it has nothing to do with human activity  wind farms, solar panels and talk of green and sustainable energy are a waste of time and money.  Other of UKIPs policies are those of the extreme right wing of the Tory Party.   I think of it as a Neo-Fascist Party with its policies endorsed by the same right-wing millionaire-owned press that supported Hitler’s Nazis, Mussolini’s Fascists and their friend General Franco in Spain, in the years before World War II.  Just as disillusion with the forces of democracy helped the Nazis into power  in 20^th Century Germany, so our disillusion with Party Politics could allow these Neo-Fascists into power in  21^st century Britain.

            I believe very strongly that everyone with an entitlement to vote should do so to prevent a takeover by extremists of this kind.  If we can’t bring ourselves to vote positively for any of the candidates in a parliamentary or local government election we can at least vote negatively to keep out the candidate we would least like to represent us.  Most of us could, I think, decide on that!

            My own political priorities are (1) Closing down the Trident submarine fleet and promoting meaningful international negotiations outlawing all nuclear weapons in all countries  (2) closer political and economic ties with our fellow Europeans in the European Union, together with a determination to work within the union for general reform (3) working continuously and by every means available to reduce the gap between the incomes of the wealthiest and the poorest within the UK. Currently we have the biggest gap in Europe! (4) Recognising the reality and urgency of dealing with Climate Change, and funding further research into the exploitation of wind, solar, wave and tidal power to provide sources of energy that would eventually eliminate the need for either fossil or nuclear fuels.

              Alone among the political parties the Green Party would support at least some of my priorities and would not, I think, actively oppose those they couldn’t endorse.  If therefore I am still around next year when we are invited to vote for our representatives in the European Parliament, I shall vote for the Green Party candidate because for that election we will have proportional representation. Every vote will count!  In the even-less-likely event of my survival till the next British Parliamentary Election (a first-past-the-post election) I shall vote for the candidate most likely to unseat our present MP.  The thought occurs to me that it is just possible that that could be the UKIP candidate.  If that were so I would – with extreme reluctance and a prayer for Heaven to forgive me - vote for our existing MP as slightly the lesser of two evils.

 ‘What’s wrong with being a 'pleb'?

          

                It seems extraordinary that there should have been so much righteous indignation over whether or not the Government’s then Chief Whip did, or did not, describe police officers with whom he was having an altercation, as plebs!  This happened over a year ago but only a fortnight ago the officers were again summoned before parliament and grilled on the subject.  I doubt if we have heard the last of it yet.

            I thought that I was familiar with all the words of abuse (printable and unprintable) in the English language, and quite a few in several mainland European ones.  I have to confess though that I had never before heard plebs used as a term of abuse or derision. I don’t, in fact, think I had ever heard it used at all.  It is presumably an abbreviation of plebeian, the designation of the underclass (the folk who actually did all the work) in ancient Rome.  The upper class who, except figuratively, never got their hands dirty were the Patricians (the pats?).  I suppose the Roman equivalent of a Chief Whip would have been one of them.

            Well, I’m a pleb and I’m inclined to think that most of the people I know wouldn’t be deeply offended if I suggested that they were plebs too. I don’t really know any pats though I suppose I have met a few people who thought they were.  Pleb is a word that I have never used but that I wouldn’t hesitate to use in even the primmest and most respectable company.  That can’t be said about other words that the former Chief Whip freely admits that he used on that disputed occasion.

            During the past year we have had steadily increasing bloodshed in Syria (but now just a slight possibility of a peaceful outcome), cripplingly escalating fuel prices in the UK,  a fall in unemployment but – just in case we get too pleased with ourselves – an increase in short-term debt and in the number of people depending on Food Banks and other kinds of charitable giving. Just last week there was a natural disaster in the Philippines (another result of the global climatic change that a small minority in the UK doesn't believe exists?) that has killed  thousands of people and rendered hundreds of thousands homeless.

            For goodness sake let’s stop worrying about whether a top politician insulted a couple of probably officious, coppers and whether policemen are more or less likely to tell the truth than top politicians. Who cares?  There are far more important things with which we should be concerning ourselves.

The Truth – and nothing but The Truth

          Writing about the truth and who is and who is not likely to be truthful reminds me that the trial of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, both former senior employees of News International has begun. Andy Coulson, you’ll remember, was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as his spin doctor.  He departed from that post only when the phone hacking scandal involving News International erupted.  Rebekah Brooks was a neighbour and close friend, not only of David Cameron but of other former prime ministers and other top politicians of both the right and the left.

            They both face serious charges relating to the phone hacking scandal and other matters involving their employment by News International.  The court will no doubt decide whether or not they are guilty of these alleged offences.

            One charge that they won’t have to face, because it isn’t an offence, is exercising undue influence over a number of politicians.  Yet that, I believe, is how they may most have harmed our country.  For that we can only penalise, by means of the ballot box, the politicians who put themselves in a situation where they could have been influenced.  And I hope that we will do so.