Well the time has come for the four main political parties in the UK to come up with a credible manifesto to take to the people in order to win their votes on 7th May.
So here is a letter I intend to send to the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP on behalf of my son, Oscar.
Dear Sirs
As a virgin voter coming up to my nineteenth birthday and a soon to be first year university student, please tell me why I should vote for you?
Yours faithfully
I have tried to teach him that yes you look at the pledges that will have a direct impact on you personally, but that it is important to think of the wider picture too.
You can vote for a party that promises to lower personal taxes (nobody likes paying these) but then you will be hit harder somewhere else where taxes are levied (no such thing as a free lunch). Public services need to be paid for, so do you go with the party that offers no austerity and lower taxes without being able to substantiate where it will get its funding from, while still denying it will increase borrowing thus creating a bigger debt that somebody, someday, will have to pay for.
Or do you go for the party that offers a stable economy, albeit with some initial hardships in the first few years, but that cow-tow to big business and corporations and have little sympathy with anyone who is in the middle income bracket.
Or do you go for a party that five years ago categorically promised something to virgin voters in 2010 and quickly reneged in the face of pressure from its coalition partner (doesn't inspire much confidence does it?)
Finally, there is the party whose main policy is the curbing of non-eu immigration and exiting the EU, but is subject to mud slinging of the grossest kind and whose supporters are often referred to as racists or bigots by the mainstream media?
Then there is the debacle that is the "first past the post" system that in days gone by favoured the two party system, effectively denying proportional representation to any smaller parties. Now it would appear that very system, that they voted to keep in a referendum a few years ago, could well work against them, with the SNP (looking in the polls at least to be on course for a victory in Scotland) likely to be a party with a huge influence in Westminster whilst they only represent 8% of the UK population. Doesn't seem very fair does it?
Then taking into account all of the above, consider how most virgin voters must feel when the only things they care about are the latest music, fashion, films, sport results etc... To us adults it's confusing, to these young adults they either default to following their parents voting habits or don't bother because "what difference does it make anyway? All politicians are a liars and thieves" as I read on-line recently.
So my message to all current and would-be politicians out there would be this;
Clean up your act, you are there at the behest of the people who have voted you in under a specific mandate that they expect you to keep. Stop the shenanigans, fiddling your expenses, nepotism and jobs for the boys and stop feathering your own nests with non-executive directorships that stop you being impartial. Then and only then will politics become something good instead of the dirty, seemingly corrupt thing it is at the moment.
