Why bother voting?

Another party conference season over. Labour spent a week in Manchester blood-letting over Tony Blair's successor as party leader. Conservatives spent their week in Bournemouth talking amongst themselves about the best way to be perceived as caring liberals. And the Liberals no doubt said something important in Brighton but, as usual, nobody was listening. Never has so little been achieved by so many.

Any time now, the politicians are due for another self-pitying bout of asking why the electorate does not take them seriously. They will lament that the 2006 General Election turnout was down to about 60%. and that in local government elections the turnout is often less than half of that figure. Naturally, being very self-important people , MPs will blame voter apathy on the electorate and propose all manner of schemes to prise voters into the ballot box. Never, not even for a second, does it cross their minds that they, the senior figures in the political parties, might be at fault.

What is the point in voting when all the major parties are competing for the same centre ground, merely trying to outdo each other through presentation of similar polices?

Tags: Politics