Right. Time to talk politics without sounding preachy. Not gonna happen is it.
So the BNP winning seats in last week's elections is annoying me, but not only for the obvious reasons. The reaction amongst the political elite and general public is baffling/angering me in equal measure.
Politics in this country is fucked at the moment - there can be no doubt about that; expenses rows, an economic crisis (which incidentally I don't think Brown exactly helped while he was Chancellor, deregulating everything to the nth degree), blind former cabinet ministers being attacked by discerning cattle - it's all gone tits up, yeah? This is a given. But my point is that we can't attribute this political decline as the sole reason for the BNP's success.
About 35% of people eligible to vote did so. And for this reason we deserve the BNP. It's like when lefties moan about Berlesconi - why? The Italian people have elected him. I have no idea how to heal, or even quantify, the apathy which seems to prevent British people going out to exercise such a basic democratic right.
It's impossible to estimate, but the media often talks about a politically educated elite that refuse to vote because no mainstream political party reflects their views. I think that this is broadly true, but there is also a similarly sized chunk of the electorate who simply do not give a fuck. It's frustrating, and may possibly always be a problem. And yes, it is the responsibility of the political system to try and get people interested in politics, but its also our responsibility.
OK, I'm done...someone put padding on the floor, I'm jumping down from the pedestal.
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