A brief political message on the upcoming UK general election...

May 6th sees the general election hit the UK. Now I wouldn’t like to reveal who I will be voting for. I know they say it’s a secret ballot although I’m sure it’s not – don’t even get me started on that. My point is more who to vote for?

You have the three “main” parties of course, Lib Dem, Conservatives and Labour. Let’s be honest they’re all as bad as each other, guilty of abusing expenses and what not. I’m not writing this to comment on all that stuff. More the fact that I was discussing the upcoming election with Mrs. T when she made a comment that she will have to vote for one of the big three because the others have no chance.

To me that’s a really defeatist attitude. All the parties are there and available for you to vote for. I know in realisation there are plenty of parties that don’t really have a chance of getting in and some parties I really hope don’t get in (and we all know who I’m talking about there!). But if everyone thought along these lines then there would never be a chance of a change. If you wanted to go and vote for a party called “None Of The Above” for instance, then you should. I do appreciate that there is a slim to none chance of certain parties gaining power but the change can be made in a small stage.

If you look at a local area of say 10,000 people. Now I am just roughly plucking these numbers out at random. Say in the last election the winner was Conservative and they had 32% of the vote and the Green party took just 6%. If enough people choose to vote Green and say next time they take a 10% share of the vote, that’s still 400 votes that would change the hands, and in total an 8% swing!!! If this continues each time then power will change!

I believe that you should vote for the party that you want to vote for and not feel like you should vote for one of the main parties, or the party you think will win.

With a general election, I know you have to look at the bigger picture. Local elections not so much. But the names of these political parties are on your ballot sheet, so you should vote for the one you want to, not feel pressured into voting for one of the so called “big three”.

If you want changes, then you need to vote and make your vote count. If enough people think they have to vote for the main three parties then no change will ever happen. If you want to vote for a “smaller” party, you bloody well should. Change can start on a small scale. So use your vote and vote for the party you believe in, it doesn’t have to be a three party race only!


(Obviously this is just my point of view, I am not asking you to take everything I say on this site seriously. It's my opinion and you are of course allowed to have your own. And opinion cannot be wrong!)