Vote for the Apathy Party

The three Birmingham constituencies aggregated above have over 180,000 registered voters between them, though over 40% failed to use their vote in the last couple of General Elections. Had non-voters come to the polling station and all voted for "None of the above", they would have won in 2005 and 2001, and come second to Labour's "landslide" victory in 1997.

One person's vote is worth c. 1/36,000th of the active voters, and less than 1/60,000th of potential voters*.

Little wonder that modern politics is a matter of computer-assisted psephology, spin and deception.

*Nationwide, the average is 69,935 voters per constituency (2007 Boundary Commission review)

Why don't the Tories now declare themselves on Europe, etc?

Supposedly the Conservatives are as far ahead as they've ever been since Mori started doing polls. Meanwhile, the economy is set for a hard, hard landing and Labour have been in power for far too long to be able to blame anyone else.

This is a golden opportunity. The Tories should make clear their policies, including all the contentious and painful ones. In or out of Europe? In or out of our various war zones? Higher taxes or cut spending? What to do about the NHS, education and welfare? About our corrupt and overpaid financial community? About importing low-paid people; trapping our underclass in unemployment and benefit dependency, and rotting their health and sanity; and exporting people that it cost us a fortune to support, educate and medicate? And what about the dreadful farce of the voting system itself?

Because one of two things will happen:

1. The Tories will win, have a mandate to sort things out, and have plenty of time between now and 2010 to make the people understand who made all these adjustments necessary. Once in power, they can keep repeating these messages so we will remember who's responsible for making us drink the nasty medicine. Fair blame to be apportioned to those Conservatives who failed us in the past, too - in reality, it's hard to find anyone among the British public so ignorant and cretinous as to think that either party can present a perfect record. Whom do the spinmeisters think they are kidding?
2. Or they will lose, and Labour can try to clean up after itself, fail disastrously, and shuffle into the shadows of history.

Or of course, the Tories can continue to do what they are now doing, and let us draw our conclusions. Then both major parties can fragment and, with any luck, die.

So, three choices: win straight, lose straight, or be unmasked. Because I'm darned if I'll vote for a Buggins'-turn pack of careerists, merely for the sake of a change from the conspiratorial, traitorous dictators we've got now.