No more AV, No more Hope

I am more disappointed than I probably should be about that loss of the AV Referendum. It was a fairly minor change, and I would really want to change to a more proportional system, but in a way it is the end of an era for me.

I have wanted change in our voting system probably for around 20 years, simply I think it is wrong that a ‘landslide’ majority can be won in parliament with a minority of the vote. AV would have addressed this somewhat, though probably not much. The depressing thing is that it is probably all that we will be offered in my lifetime, so I have effectively now lost all hope of any meaningful change in the UK.

I am British by birth, but have never waved a Union Jack and sung Rule Britannia, and probably never will. I don’t particularly want to hark back to the times when Britain ‘ruled the waves’, if we ever did, as I think we did a lot of things with our empire that I don’t think we can be proud of. I never watched the royal wedding, I wish them well, and I think the Royals are good for the tourists, but otherwise I am not interested.

What I would like is to live in a country that is democratic, and I don’t think our current system is particularly democratic when our governments are not normally based on anywhere near the majority of the votes. The political parties are quite happy with this of course, which is why Labour never did anything to change the voting system when they promised to in 1997, and this was only done now due the Lib-Dems insisting on it for the coalition.

I see Britain often as in a time-warp, pretending that we still have an empire and are more important in the world than we really are. I don’t see much future for the UK, we have little industry left and beyond private companies raking profits in off government contracts, and the continued extraction from the banks, there seems little prospect for future growth, especially with the public sector being cut so violently. Perhaps I should leave the UK and move somewhere else I would be happier with, but unfortunately I am not in a position to do so.

Will I ever vote again? Possibly, but I think we have lost a chance to bring Britain into the 20th century in one way, even if there was never a chance of entering the 21st.