Tuesday, June 09, 2009

On not voting

As it happens I did not vote last Thursday – some change in procedure which I did not pick up on meant my name was not on the register (it is now)

Also as it happens my vote would not have affected the outcome in that I would have voted for the incumbent on the county council (who was returned) & spoiled my ballot paper for Europe

I will not vote for a party list, it’s that simple & that’s what I write on the ballot paper (interesting to note that Mary Beard does the same). It is the worst form of PR, giving too much power to the party machine, just multiplying the risks

European elections are always difficult anyway, for all the reasons regularly rehearsed by commentators, exacerbated in our case by the specific problem of not really feeling a part of somewhere called the East Midlands, living as we do right in the top left hand corner, far, far away from Lincolnshire. There is really no feeling of having a regional interest to stand up & be counted for

It serves me right, I suppose, that Robert Kilroy Silk was representing me in the last European Parliament

UKIP actually won 1 less seat compared with last time, nor did the BNP get a seat this time despite a fairly hefty number of votes

So next time I shall have to think hard, assuming I still have no +ve reason for voting, about a possible tactical vote to prevent a result too awful to contemplate


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