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As I have mentioned previously, I have had a lot of trouble finding a political party that comes even close to representing my own agenda. Sure, like most people, I can find a Labour policy here, mix it with a couple of Tory policies there, throw in a sprinkling of Liberal Democrat notions, add a small touch of UKIP – and shake vigourously. But it doesn’t help me to determine how I should use my vote next time around. And I care about how I use my vote.
To me, I’d be wasting my vote by giving it to Labour although at this very moment I am having a bit of trouble finding anything in the Labour programme that meets my need. I’d be wasting it on the Tories that’s for sure. Our paths might meet on one or two issues but that’s about all and I rather believe that David Cameron is quite likely to get the chance after the next General Election to show the world what a shallow fool he is. The Liberal Democrats, once my ‘just about’ political home are in total disarray and are too pro-Europe to even get a look in these days. Which leaves the smaller groups. UKIP is a possibility but they have no ‘English’ policy and the BNP might be a rising star but my vote certainly has to count against them!
Which is why I took a closer look at the English Democrats. Once I got passed the clunky and muddled website and downloaded their manifesto, I realised that apart from one or two fairly inconsequential, low-ticket items, then I am in broad agreement with their agenda.
The two big items – our removal from the European Union and the restoration of democracy to England – I already knew. But like any political party, they have to back those major items with policy statements on just about everything and while the language may be fuzzy I found the intentions to my satisfaction. As one would expect of any new political movement, a little thin on how things get paid for and a little bloated with good intent – but basically all sensible stuff aimed at restoring England to a place I would be happy to once again call home.
So I joined up. And if a vote for the English Democrats is what people like to call a ‘wasted vote’ because of the unlikely event of them achieving power then I prefer to waste my vote on policies I believe in rather than squandering it on a party who are just the ‘best fit’.
So I went to their website, and looked for some rhetoric, there was this video with a tabloid columnist ranting about stuff. I could agree with some of it, most of it I found at the worst inoffensive, but then he started ragging on the metric system just because it wasn’t invented in England.
Screw that – I can’t vote for a party so stuck-up on their chosen high horse as to reject something sane, rational and sensible in favour of something as illogical and outdated as imperial measurements, and I dislike the idea that politics is reduced to populist crap over solid policy. I know it’s only rhetoric, but it’s rhetoric that wins elections, barely anyone actually reads manifestos. Total write-off.
Oh come on Jake. I think I found this comment about as facile as I find Garry Bushell and with no desire to defend Bushell the words ‘imperial measurement’ got one mention in a long list of other items. He certainly didn’t ‘rag on about the metric system’. It wasn’t even mentioned yet alone negatively. Personally I find the video of questionable quality and wouldn’t include it … but it does at least encapsulate some important messages that the vast majority are not even aware of. If it takes a clown to spread some awareness then I say bring on the circus. And it just might take the rhetoric of a tabloid clown to get the message through to those very people who don’t read manifestos.
“To rag on [smth]” means “to insult; to ridicule”, it’s not synonymous with “To harp on [about smth]“. And however little time he spent on it, the metric system was ridiculed, for no better reason – by context – than that it was not English. He mentions Imperial measurements in a positive light, and elevates “Metric Martyrs giving the finger to Brussels”. These so-called ‘Metric Martyrs’ are far from heroes of mine, I see them as pathetic idiots who refuse to adopt a sensible and rational system, instead hanging on to an outdated and comparatively worthless system for stupid reasons. These people were not prosecuted for using the Imperial system, as appears to be commonly believed, but for refusing to display Metric at all. I was under the impression that this country had been ‘officially’ metric since before I was born, so to support such people is practically equivalent to supporting false or misleading adbvertising.
If Garry Bushell is not representative of the English Democrats, they would not have him on their website – therefore, I am forced to conclude that they agree with his spiel. There are two reasons I can think of for this, and I don’t like either of them; firstly, they could in fact be nationalist to the point of stupidity and actually prefer the Imperial measurement system to the far-more-efficient metric system, and I have no desire to be ruled by such people. Secondly, they could be trying to appeal to the crowd with such opinions on the grounds that the believe that they are unlikely to get enough votes to count if they do not, and such a tactic will inevitably result in them pandering to them in the long run.
A third option, of course, being that they are so inept as to have not actually screened the dialogue before recording it and throwing it hastily on their website, in which case I can’t believe they’d make a good governing party, either. A possible fourth that they considered it a ‘harmless joke’, which I am even more wary of as it collates all three other possibilities into one.
It may be a seemingly-throwaway comment, but my concern is essentially that political parties end up at the whim of their voters, particularly when they are small, and thus the kind of voters that they attract necessarily shapes their policy. And… well, I find the concept of teaching children the Imperial system utterly abhorrent, but I know that a large percentage of Daily Mail readers would switch back in a heartbeat.
Well done Andy in taking a principled stand. If just half of us could make the transition from apolitical/disaffected swing voter cynics to people who actually looked into what the political parties really stand for ideologically, and sustained demand where it should be by using our votes with some kind of purpose, the UK might be a different place.
The system lets us down, party funding is unfair, the mainstream parties are caught up in intellectual snobbery, and some political issues don’t even get airtime so its down to personal discernment, and the ongoing job of those of us who feel strongly enough about the state of our country to debate it.