Elections - You Can't Buy My Vote

With all parties gearing themselves up for the European elections next month, I worry about the machinations of those involved. People we’ve hardly heard of, let alone met, give their pitch in a bid to win a seat on the European gravy train, to many who neither understand what they are voting for, and who won’t turn up at the ballot box on the day anyway.

The right to vote is course one of the foundations of democracy, and one that is still hard fought for in third world countries. However, apart from paying lip service to engaging with the electorate, little appears to be being done to ensure that aside from those who have their own agendas, the younger generation in particular feel inspired to get out and make their mark.

What inevitably happens is that the diehards amongst the electorate, with fairly fixed views along the lines of ‘I’ve always voted that way…’, turn out to have their say, and the rest bemoan the results for the next four years or so. Much as we might like to, we can’t have it both ways.

Our role in Europe has been high on the agenda for all parties recently. This is largely as a result of the success of minority parties in the local elections in 2013, which caught the other parties unaware. I would suggest that this is because people are fed up with policies that seem to bend to European will, and they feel that those in power, of whichever persuasion, have done little to fight for a fair deal for Britain. I don’t necessarily believe this to be the case, but the thinking behind this is almost exclusively to do with poor communication, otherwise we would not have seen so many turn out last year to vote for a parties that at a local level could play very little part, and with virtually no impact, in the big issue; that of immigration.

Hard on the heels of the European elections, all parties will be gearing themselves up for next year’s general election, and there is evidence of this already.

What many of us can expect to see is a flurry of activity, both locally and nationally, as those in charge start to play catch-up and are seen to be courting the public gallery with a number of popular vote catching initiatives. This will be in a bid to show just how much they care and are working on our behalf. We can, I am certain, expect the chequebooks, which have so far remained, to a large degree, firmly closed to be opened up to select projects to capture the public imagination in a bid to curry favour and in the hope of gaining a few votes.

To be bribed in such a way is something that we must all resist in a bid to avoid seduction. We all caution children not to accept sweets from strangers, and as adults we must see it for what it is. It was only in 2010, at the last general election, that outgoing Treasury Secretary, Liam Byrne, left a note for his successor, which said "there's no money left".

I believe that in making decisions about who should lead us we should, and must, look to their record of achievement so far, rather than succumb to empty promises, and the enticement of a few treats, which after all we are paying for anyway.