Firstly I must beg for forgiveness regarding my language (the quotations I hope minimise any offence, I’ll keep the original owner of this phrase anonymous for now) but I feel no other 3 words have been used so eloquently to sum up this year’s election buildup so far. And yes, that is a baby yawning.
As Gordon Brown launches his manifesto on an electioneering loophole (allowing him to use what-will-soon-be a public hospital) and BBC News 24 spends several minutes debating what kind of a platform David (or Dave) Cameron will be standing on (is it, or is it not, a soapboax?) in Loughborough, I couldn’t help but feel dread towards the prospect of what the next five years will be like politically.
The two largest parties are, quite frankly, hideous.
If my foot was the personification of my political interests, then Voting Conservative would be the equivalent of shooting it. I’m not quite sure what terrifies me more, the old guard of the Conservative party or the shiny glossy cover of rolled up sleeves, cringy visits with ‘real’ people and Obamaisms which hides it.
Then, there’s the Labour party who long ago traded in my metaphorical foot for an electoral majority. Listening to David (not Dave) Milliband today bragging to dozens of immigrants about the UK’s role as a bastion for human rights (presumably by blowing up and torturing people) and the rule of law, internationally, made me want to eat that foot and throw it up.
Discovering that Labour had pledged to extend the vote to 16 & 17 yeard-olds made me want to do the same thing with the foot. Not because I don’t think they should be able to vote (anyone who says they’re not educated or mature enough to vote either need to actually meet young people, or meet the electorate) but because it smacks of hypocrisy and stupidity: Hypocrisy, because of the shameful lengths New Labour have gone to criminalise, victimize and ostricise these very people; stupidity, because it’s based on the rationale that it is a solution to political apathy, that apathy can be defeated by extending the vote to more apathetic people.
Then we have the likes of the Liberal Democrats, smaller parties and the independents who seem victims of a largescale conspiracy. A conspiracy to perpetuate the myth that none of them have policies or clout when really its because we are being force-fed the other two’s concotions by a lapdog media. Concoctions aimed at pandering to those in Middle England (being the unbroken part of broken Britain) who are allowed to decide the election, thanks to the political apathy endemic through most of our society.
There you go, that’s the cynical musings of a miserable first-time voter. Not that my vote counts for much. The current system means that, even though I have the luxury of being able to vote in one of two constituencies, my vote is worthless in the Tory strongholds I reside from.
I hope a more optimistic UKc student feels compelled to write an inspirational response, exposing me for the misinformed idiot that (I hope) I am. Until then, it’s tragic but it’s true: it’s all bo****ks.
