(no subject)

[hathycol]

Right, so, today I am not voting. This is because I live in Scotland and therefore cannot, as we had ours last year.

Anyway. The general point here is that if you are old enough, you should vote. You might think "Oh, well, council elections, who cares?" and the answer is WELL BLOODY EVERYONE. Council tax, bins, schools and nursing homes may not seem particularly sexy compared to all the fun stuff Parliament gets to play with, but it's important.

I won't tell you who to vote for. Unless you live in Lancashire, as this means you should vote Labour because that's my uncle's job. But I will point out that you shouldn't take the relative competencies of the Westminster bunch as an example. I hate the 10p tax thingy as much as you do. Probably more. That doesn't reflect on the actions of the lowly councillors who are almost always Good People.

But seriously. Vote. It's important.

AND IF YOU LIVE IN LONDON then please, for the love of sweet buggary fuck, don't vote for Boris Johnson. I cannot emphasise this enough. Seriously. The only options worse there are the BNP and UKIP. Even then I'm not 100% sure about UKIP. YOU SEE MY SAXON ICON? SEE WHAT HAPPENED THERE? Besides, THINK OF IT THIS WAY: Johnson doesn't get elected, he can go back to being a comedy MP that hosts Have I Got News For You occasionally. I can deal with that. Not the idea of him as the real political figure though. Oh, god.

Comments

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

I didn't get round to regstering =(
But then I was planning on jetting off somewhere ridiculously early this morning which unfortunately hasn't happened for various reasons.
Not that I've been following politics. I have no idea what this 10p tax is except that people seem to be bothered by it.
I am obviously not a very good person.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

The 10p Tax Thingy, as it's now referred to as in our Channel 4 News watching household, is a Very Bad Thing that essentially screws a lot of the lower earners over. Now, I would be incensed by this if it was any other government, but Labour? Working-class, designed to support the lowest earning bracket Labour?

For shame.

Registering is really easy! Honestly! They send you something and you send it back!

[purplerainbow.livejournal.com]

I have also not registered to vote. I am suitably ashamed. I'm not sure whether I count as a Wirral person or a Manchester person really. I should vote in Manchester because I do care about bins and recycling and get very passionate about it, but didn't even realise that today was voting day. I fail.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

A lot of people didn't seem to realise it was going on. Which says it all, really...

I vote in Scotland because a. I want to keep the nationalists out (didn't work, alas) and b. I live here the majority of the time.

[tau_sigma]

Students can vote in both termtime and holiday places, as long as the two aren't in the same county. At least, in England you can. I don't know what happens if one is in England and the other in Scotland.

[sevenhelz.livejournal.com]

Uh, I didn't think you could. I think technically you can be registered in both but you only have one vote.
x

[tau_sigma]

No, I checked it out, and we had an e-mail from someone administraty in the university confirming it. You can definately vote in both if it's for local elections and not two votes in the same county.

[tau_sigma]

I voted! My first ever in-person vote. Yay. The polling station was woefully under-signed, which may account for its surprising emptiness. I kind of thought that going at lunchtime risked a queue, but apparently not ... am I entirely too optimistic in thinking that many people vote?

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Average voting (this is off the top of my head based on politics exams three years ago) is hovering around the 50% mark for general elections. It's more like 20% for council and European elections.

How depressing is that? *is proud to vote*

[shipperkitten.livejournal.com]

I didn't remember until it was too late to register, really hoping Boris doesn't win :-S

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

It's like... well, when we ran the Dalek as a jok candidate for the Union, we didn't actually expect to do very well, os it was all funny and hilarious until voting day itself and then everyone was in a blind panic. That's a bit what this feels like. Actually, this pretty much sums it up.

[shoe--gal.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why it's only now that people are incensed about the 10p tax thingy - I was pretty mad about it when it was announced last year - has it really taken the government that long to work out the blindingly obvious implications?! I've missed all the recent stuff about it as we were away but am I right in thinking that people with children and older people will get compensated but people like me will be screwed over and not compensated at all? Overall I suppose what Scott saves on his wages will make up for what's taken off mine (once I start tutoring again) but it still pisses me off!

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

I've been worried since then, but now I'm bloody furious; working in a nursing home, all my collegues are in that tax bracket and do a godawful crappy job for not much money, and the ones without kids lose out. That is... not fair. At all.

Bring back Clause IV!

[elyim.livejournal.com]

I hope there's not an election here today... I haven't seen or heard anything about it, so if there is one it's been very poorly promoted. I don't think I'm even registered to vote here.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

There might not be? You'll know if you're registered to vote, because they put your polling card through the door.

[hyrnetanga.livejournal.com]

Just looked up the 10p tax thingy - are they trying to alienate all their voters?! By the looks of things even the Tories wanted to slip a clause in that bill which would magically un-fuck it all next year if Labour hadn't come to their senses by then! And looking at the figures the treasury doesn't stand to gain much if anything from the changes, although they are complicated enough that I've probably missed something. That said, I don't for a nanosecond believe that Gordon Brown didn't realise that lower earners would miss out! That part is glaringly obvious.
Oh, but wait...just look how much the highest earners will be pocketing! And who falls into that top wage bracket? The MP's, their families, their friends...who will each be taking home an extra £169.90/week, whilst all the reports will say that the government is paying out more money to the public. Very nice. Not.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

It's one of those ideas that sort of makes sense if you, perchance, think that Labour voters are that bloody stupid that they'll vote for you whatever happens and instead desperately try and appeal to middle England.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[sevenhelz.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Apparently I was registered for postal voting back home, but since the stuff got sent to back home address, and I'm here, and I thought I was registered here as well and it turns out my damn housemates didn't get round to posting in the card - it was even filled in, at least for me - I actually had no idea it was voting day. Oops.

[endisforever91.livejournal.com]

You could have voted in West Lancs if you'd applied for a postal vote.