OPINION: Low turn outs at elections

Yet again the British public has shown apathy at a set of elections with a turnout of only about 31% at yesterday's local and mayoral elections.

Across the world people risk their lives for the right to have a say in how their countries are run, and here, in the UK, there's been two world wars and the suffragette moving fighting for, and protecting, our democratic freedoms, and yet a majority of people just don't care.

Sure, the MPs' expenses scandal dented public confidence in politicians, but turnouts were low before that.

So why don't people vote?

They seem to think all politicians are the same, and that many are there to line their own pockets, they don't believe their vote will make a difference and they simply don't care about politics, preferring, instead, to vote on the X Factor or Britain's Got Talent.

There is certainly a problem with the major parties slowly morphing into one. All three now offer a variation of a centre right politics and the continual bickering between the parties seems to be arguing for the sake of it, rather than on principle. As I blogged the other day, party politics is bad for democracy.

There are those who argue that the first past the post election system is at fault. Too many seats are foregone conclusions and so most votes are irrelevant unless you live in one of about 50 marginal seats. They want to replace it with AV (rejected by the electorate in a referendum last year) or PR (which has lead to massive unstable governments in Italy since the Second World War.

There are, of course, some who want to introduce more postal votes or voting by text or online. All of these ideas need to be looked at, and if they can be introduced without making electoral fraud easier, I see no reason why more variety of voting methods can't be used - but I doubt this is the big solution.

I think another issue is that there are too many career politicians who have no experience of the real world outside of Westminster. Maybe there should be a minimum age for MPs?

I like first past the post; the winner is the winner. The elected MP has a clear local link maintained and there is no nonsense of the person coming third or fourth on the first round of balloting ending up winning. First past the post is simple, understandable and democratic.

So what should be done?

There probably aren't any quick fixes. We need more openness and honesty in politics. We need the electorate to believe that MPs are in parliament to work for a better society and not merely there like pigs at the trough. We need a true rainbow of politics with genuine alternatives to centre right capitalism. And, I think, we need to make voting compulsory.

Yes, it should be a legal requirement to vote. This would mean that there has to be an option for "No Suitable Candidate" or "Re-open Nominations" so that people aren't forced to vote for parties that they disagree with but, if we want a genuinely vibrant and democratic politics that is the change that is necessary.

COMMENT: Independent daze

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The laws of the land are made by political parties and so they will be made to help political parties.

That's all well and good - until you have an independent candidate standing.

Siobhan Benita is an independent candidate in the election for London mayor. She is a fresh new face, unlike the 3 candidates from the major parties, all who were around four years ago. And Siobhan is doing very well, considering she doesn't have the weight of one of the monolithic parties behind her. Currently, according to opinion polls she is standing fourth - behind Labour, Tory and Lib Dem candidates, but ahead of the Green, BNP and UKIP candidates.

Election law stipulates how much media coverage the candidates receive and makes sure things are fair.

But it isn't fair.

Election broadcasts, and specifically the quantity of them, are based on performance at previous elections by each party. In the election for London mayor the big 3 parties have all had multiple broadcasts, and the smaller parties have all be allowed a broadcast too.

But Siobhan isn't allowed one.

As a newbie, without electoral history personally, and without the weight of history provided by an established party, she's not allowed an election broadcast - and her position in the opinion polls counts for nothing.

So the racists of the BNP and UKIP get to flaunt their distasteful policies on television and radio, Labour's Jen Livingstone, with his various unpleasant views and dubious tax arrangements, gets some, the standing mayor is allowed to defend his record, even Brian Paddick is allowed airtime to try to pretend his party hasn't been subsumed into the Tory Party...

... but Siobhan Benita, a woman whose message many are turning to, isn't allowed an election broadcast because the parties have stitched up the law about election broadcasts.

It is undemocratic. It is blatantly wrong and unjust. It's a situation that must be changed.