There's nothing I can do.

[blackie_fen]

I have to admit, I've always felt that if you forfeit your right to vote, then you forfeit your right to complain when you don't get the outcome you wanted.

[silky]

I was a local independent councillor as I didn’t want the main parties telling me what was good for my community. A number of people would tell me they didn’t vote because it was a waste of time. I would tell them that the only way to change something was from the inside and that if they didn’t like what was happening then vote them out.

As for the news, you are only watch or reading what the editor wants you to see.

[blackie_fen]

As for the news, you are only watch or reading what the editor wants you to see.

Very true - in each country throughout what we think of as the 'civilised' world, we tend to look at other countries and think 'why don't they understand about 'x' - why don't their news programmes report on it properly?' without realising that our newspapers and programmes all have their own biases and agendas which influence what we see and hear.

[saint-spoon]

Very true, I don not believe that there are any truly impartial news agencies, even the beeb seems to come under the political grip of the ruling junta, one only has to look at the positive spin they put on the latest budget and national debt.
It also appears to me that actual news has now become obsolete in our modern world of celeb worship and sensationalist headlines. This morning on the news there was nothing about the global war in the middle east, nothing about the collapsing economy and nothing “new” about the swine flu situation. We did have sensational headlines about folk cancelling their holidays on the advice of the foreign office, and speculative bulletins on the same subject. One reporter has just stated that Mexico city is at the centre of a “GLOBAL” outbreak; the caption at the bottom of the screen is calling it a pandemic. Let me please put this into prospective; as it stands less than 200 people have died from the disease, compared to starvation, malaria, HIV, dysentery etc it is pretty insignificant in the current global scheme of things. It may become a global catastrophe but so far it hasn’t and let us hope it doesn’t.

And update from an expert has just flattened the reporter who was so desperately trying to inject sensationalist words such as panic and catastrophic; apparently, from the expert, there is nothing to worry about just yet as there are insignificant cases outside of Mexico and until more information is available such speculation is futile. They have got rid of the expert and continued drawing their own conclusions.

[wendy]

You are right there SS. I always vote.
My grandmothers generation tied themselves to railings and died under horses hooves to give me, a mere woman, the vote.
Wendy

[saint-spoon]

You are right there SS. I always vote.
My grandmothers generation tied themselves to railings and died under horses hooves to give me, a mere woman, the vote.
Wendy

I beg your pardon, they let women vote? Seriously? Whatever next, well i must say I’m surprised that we’ve let democracy slip so far. xxxx

[Bok bok bok]

OOOOH! Brave!

[Babycakes]

Not only am I allowed to vote, I have a driving licence too!!

[wendy]

Very brave I would say !

[Stig]

Voting for one political party or the other, whose ideologies are hardly poles apart, is not really democracy. Paul Kingsnorth eloquently put it (in his excellent book "one no many yeses"), it isn't about choosing party A or party B - choices should be made on a range of issues from A to Z.

Did anyone read the article in the Guardian the other day about the scandalous money being spent on the London Olympics? UK citizens might have opinions to express about that, other than ousting the govt at the next general election.

[Orfy]

I will happily vote against candidates.

That's what I do if I can't support an individual.

[kate egg]

And also the women who fought for the vote a hundred years ago! I always cast my vote, but its hard sometimes to decided which way to place it.........

[bluebell]

I try to always use by vote - women went to prison, on hunger strike and died to get me it!

[Orfy]

What would you do if you had 4 people to vote for
2 have no chance of wining and the two that do you do not agree with the policies of one and do not agree with the party policies of the other.

[wendy]

I personally would vote for the one I agree with, even if they wouldn't succeed. Otherwise, why bother.
Wendy