Why there's No Excuse for Not Voting

So, once again the time to decide is almost upon us. No, not who you want to win Strictly Dance Fever (although it is hotting up quite nicely I must confess), but which political party we will entrust with the reins of power in the forthcoming General Election. I'll forgive you for thinking, 'Who cares? They're all the same,' but it is this general apathy that helps politicians to get away with bungling their way through their tenures without a large proportion of the population even realising how inept some of them really are. They bore people (particularly young eligible voters) to the point of distraction with confusing, mind-numbing facts, figures and (yawn) statistics. The Labour government was voted in at the last General Election by just 24% of the public, so their policies, by no means, represent the wants and needs of every person in society.

It is extremely important that the younger members of society get to the ballot boxes with pen in hand, as the 18-35ish age group are precisely the people who are not represented in the Houses of Parliament.

How can they be acting on our behalf when they they don't live as we live? The youngest Member of Parliament is Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East, who weighs in at a veritable spring-chickenlike 30 years old. So it's not surprising if you feel like you can't really identify with them. If the grey-vote provide the majority turnout then it is because they feel that the politicians share their vision of how this country should be. If a party wants to govern this country as though it was still the 1950s and that's just how you wished things still were, then you will go out and tick their box.

But hey, these are the noughties, this country has changed a great deal for the better, and for the worse, but to not vote in the election is to relinquish your right to complain about change not happening quickly enough.

On May 5, both County Council and Parliamentary elections will take place to select councillors and MPs. Tony Blair, who visited Northamptonshire back in February, cited the county as one of the major battlegrounds in the country because it contains some of the most marginal Labour-held seats.

So, who gets your vote?

I know, I'm as confused as most people. I suppose it comes down to policies, as none of the party leaders are particularly good-looking.

Here are some of the proposals regarding topical issues: 

Tax:

• Labour has pledged to not raise income tax and promises tax-cuts for families. They haven't ruled out a rise in national insurance though.
• The Conservatives promise £4bn worth of cuts, while the Lib Dems say that they won't have to cut taxes, but will create a 50% rate for earners of more than £100,000 per year.
• The Green Party will make it a 60% rate for these earners. The rate currently stands at 40%.

Education:

• Labour will cap university top-up fees, which they promised they wouldn't bring in at the last General Election, at £3,000.
• The Conservatives will scrap university fees and instead charge interest on student loans. Lib Dem will cut class sizes to 20 and do away with uni tuition fees.

Health:

• Labour offer more choice over hospitals, with waiting times at an 18-week maximum.
• The Tories say they will crack down on MRSA, while the Lib Dems are offering free prescriptions and eye-tests.
• The Green Party want to increase the NHS funding to around £90bn per year.

The Environment:

• Is climate-change a bigger threat to us than international terrorism? With Labour currently chairing the G8, they will apply more pressure, internationally, on reducing CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050.
• The Lib Dems will put a freeze on GM crops and want 20% of energy to come from renewable sources.
• The Greens will replace VAT with eco-taxes, including a carbon tax, to penalise environmentally-unfriendly products like fossil fuels.

Civil Liberties:

• Labour are in favour of bringing in ID cards to help combat international terrorism. Feel a little Orwellian? The Spanish have had ID cards for years but they didn't stop the Madrid bombers from slipping through the net. The Lib Dems will spend the ID card money on 10,000 more police officers.
• The Conservatives want a reform of the asylum system and have certainly been trying to tap into this controversial issue. Are they trying to link asylum-seekers to terrorism? It's up to you to decide. None of the major parties have done anywhere near enough to clarify the difference between migrants and asylum-seekers, perhaps with the exception of Charles Kennedy, Lib Dems, who said that the country was 'richer and more vibrant,' precisely because it was a 'multi-racial, multi-ethnic society.'

Iraq:

• One of the most emotive issues in this General Election. Do we trust Blair who has been proven to have taken our country to war, (the most extreme action that a government can take in your name, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and 87 British soldiers so far, plus thousands of others), under false pretences?
• The Tories backed the war and the Lib Dems strongly opposed it.

There aren't just three choices either.

If you think the Green Party have got their priorities right, then vote for them. No vote is a wasted vote. Each one sends a message to Westminster - every vote counts.

Even ones for the strangely-orange xenophobe Robert Kilroy-Silk's Veritas party

Er, actually, that might be a wasted vote. But the important thing is that on May 5, you get out and vote. It is worth keeping in mind, the men and women of Iraq, who braved the reality of suicide-bombers, and stood in queues for hours to make their voices heard in a democracy that we imposed on them. For us not to go to the polls would be criminal. The world has changed a great deal in the last four years.

Time to get off our arses.