Friday, April 29, 2005 AD
Small election in Britain, not many interested
Some of you may be wondering why I've not made any mention of the UK General Election on my blog. Well, frankly it's all been too tedious and depressing to bother. And anyway, my vote on this occasion is, ahem, a private matter between myself and the ballot box (and anyone who's ever done any canvassing will know what that means).
So I'm with Clement Attlee, who, towards the end of the 1951 general election campaign, was respectfully asked by a BBC radio journalist whether "on this, the eve of a general election" he had any particular thoughts for the British people. He replied:
Turn-out at the 1951 election was 82.6%, by the way. If the rather more voluble politicians of today can persuade as many as 60% of us to vote at all this time around, they'll be doing pretty well (turnout in 2001 was 59.4%, and this campaign has been even less inspiring than the last one).
The mood of the election campaign - with its heady mixture of voter apathy, collapsing car companies, concerns about voting fraud, negative personal attacks and wearisome haggling over tax and spending plans - has been perfectly summarised over the past few weeks by the Telegraph's cartoonist, Matt (the middle two are my personal favourites):
(Hat-tip to DS Ketelby for the Clem Attlee story).
So I'm with Clement Attlee, who, towards the end of the 1951 general election campaign, was respectfully asked by a BBC radio journalist whether "on this, the eve of a general election" he had any particular thoughts for the British people. He replied:
"No, not particularly."Ah, that's the spirit.
Turn-out at the 1951 election was 82.6%, by the way. If the rather more voluble politicians of today can persuade as many as 60% of us to vote at all this time around, they'll be doing pretty well (turnout in 2001 was 59.4%, and this campaign has been even less inspiring than the last one).
The mood of the election campaign - with its heady mixture of voter apathy, collapsing car companies, concerns about voting fraud, negative personal attacks and wearisome haggling over tax and spending plans - has been perfectly summarised over the past few weeks by the Telegraph's cartoonist, Matt (the middle two are my personal favourites):
(Hat-tip to DS Ketelby for the Clem Attlee story).
