Compulsory Voting?

The recent turnouts in both local elections and by elections have highlighted the apathy of the British people towards their mainstream politicians.  This has resulted in some local councillors being elected onto local councils with only 10% of the support of their constituents.

Even some national politicians have been returned to Westmonster with under 20% approval.  It is ridiculous so something has to change.  My wife believes that compulsory voting is the answer and recently a couple of the regular contributors to this blog have suggested the same course of action.

In Australia voting is compulsory so it is possible.  It would possibly force some of the young to investigate who their candidates are and what they stand for.  The emergence of UKIP has brought back some interest in politics because we now have a genuine opposition to LABLIBCON who all sing from the same hymn sheet and then pretend major differences on minor issues.

It always amuses me when Ed Miliband jumps up and down about tax breaks for the rich when he is the very person enjoying them! It is also refreshing to see the leader of a political party Nigel Farage) answering  questions directly and not hiding behind a plethora of platitudes.

I still believe that we should not elect a politician until he/she has secured a major percentage of support from the electorate (30%,40%,50%?).  The concept being that if the electorate cannot be bothered to turn out then they forfeit representation. That should then force the politicians to get the vote out.  In our recent local elections the publicity was limited to leaflet dropping.

If our mainstream politicians really thought that the public were worthy of consideration they would tighten up the system, particularly postal voting involving immigrant communities, where electoral fraud has already been uncovered.

If we are to engage the young in politics then they must be targeted through the medium that attracts them (thanks for the idea SAB). The traditional evasive politics practiced by the mainstream politicians has switched off or even disgusted generations of the public. So perhaps compulsory voting is the only way forward!