At last… the general election is on. In one of his last acts as Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the election for May 6th, after over two years of speculation.
It should be the most exciting election yet, with the current Labour government in turmoil, tired, clapped out and extremely unpopular. However, many people have yet to be convinced by David Cameron’s Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats, although they can’t win, could yet spring some surprise victories against the other two parties. The election could see the breakthrough for the likes of the British National Party and the Greens for the first time.
The election will be fought in the middle of the most deepest recession of recent times, our politicians continually getting caught messing with their expense accounts, the confusion of the aims of the war in Afghanistan, and the mass banking crisis. With so many problems afflicting the country, many people wonder why would they want to even bother to put a cross towards any candidate. Media pundits predict that less than half of the electorate will bother to vote this time.
This election, as in any other, should be about which way we want Britain to head over the next few years and beyond. It is tempting, and usually typical to say, “Those politicians, they’re all the same, always having their fingers in the till”. However, if voters are going to stop the perceived rot that this country is in, we need to demand not just from the candidates who want to represent us, but also from ourselves as well, about what we want for the country.
There are two ways of going about that…one, on May 6th, brush off the cynicism and go out to vote, and two, if you don’t like the choices on offer, put yourself forward as an independent candidate in the future. There is no middle way.