5 reasons to vote in May
After recently hearing a story about a girl, in the year below me at school (Year 12), who when faced with the question “who is the current prime minister?” answered, “Tony Blair… Oh, no Gordon Brown” I realised how out of touch people really can be.
What makes this worse is that this unnamed girl (for obvious reasons) was so easily convinced by the people around her that the current prime minister was in fact Ewan McGregor, further demonstrating a serious lack of political knowledge, but also a lack of attention during film classics like ‘Trainspotting’.
This series of events led me to realise just how easily Russell Brand could influence these new generation of voters and whilst I support Brand’s views on drug policies and an elitist political system, I do not support his attempt to convince people not to vote.
Whilst he comes across as the individual we all want to be; attractive, laid back alongside an apparent high intellect due to his ability to speak as though he is writing a follow up to the song ‘Parklife’, his voting ideologies are flawed: encouraging the general public not to vote will not cause the Revolution he prays for but lead to an endless cycle of Tory government. The flaw isn’t mysterious or hard to see; those who benefit from and support the current prime minister, David Cameron, will go out and vote for him on the 7th of May, whilst those who don’t benefit from or support Cameron will not go out and vote, leading to the Tories winning yet another election.
So here I am fighting Russell’s no vote plan with my list of reasons as to why you should vote in May.
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It’s your right – whilst this reason sounds cliché, it is not one that should be dismissed, especially if you’re a woman. People died to get you this vote and people are still dying today in countries around the world to earn the right to vote and have a democracy.
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It’s a classless act – Very few things in Britain now exist that are ‘classless’ or remain unaffected by class, it doesn’t matter whether you are rich, poor, working class, middle class, upper class, you are able to vote, have your say and make, what is in your eyes, a positive change.
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You can righteously complain – We hear many people complain about the way the government runs our lives, yet when questioned further it is discovered that many of them did not vote. Which raises the question, ‘Can they really complain?’, which comes with the answer ‘NO!’. You can not complain about something you had the opportunity to ‘voice your opinion’ in yet chose not to.
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It does affect you – No matter how hard you try and pass off that voting/not voting will not change your life you will always be wrong. Almost every aspect of your life is effected by the current government, like how much you get paid or what you learn at school or how much you pay for university. If you boycott the election you are allowing the people with the sense to vote to determine how your life is run.
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Nando’s – To quote Nick Clegg when ‘interviewed’ on ’The Last Leg’ “[not voting] is like going to Nando’s and asking someone else (who knows nothing about you) to order for you”
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p.s. don’t let the fact that this is Nick Clegg put you off, pretend someone cool said it.
If you have read this and thought ‘Okay, I’ll vote next time’ only to find that there are no parties which you agree with or want to vote for, this does not give you an excuse not to vote. Go out and spoil your ballot, draw a penis, cross all the boxes, write some curse words, because spoiling your ballot speaks louder in the turnout statistics than staying at home.
Ollie Marchant (almost eligible to vote).
Scuffle 