Connor Davidson

It’s Not About Why you Should Vote for Us it’s Why you Shouldn’t Vote for Them this Election


Posted: Thursday, April 08, 2010

by Connor Davidson

Oh isn't it exciting? The general election date has finally been set for the 6 th of May and politics is really getting tough. This year is really going to be good. Has labour been in power too long? Have we recovered sufficiently from The Thatcher' to vote conservative? And who on earth is Nick Clegg (old joke)? Whatever it is, it's going to be close. The reason I decided to write this article is that I received a leaflet through the door this morning from a local MSP. The first few paragraphs I found incredibly irritating. Here are a few quotes:

The rest of the MSP's message is simply him contrasting these parties with his party. This is frustrating and annoying on so many levels. Firstly, it's not going to be fair and balanced - the Labour party is not 100% miserably awful as the leaflet seams to be implying. I want to read about the Conservatives in the conservative's newsletter, Labour in Labours', Lib Dems in the Lib Dems'. Then go onto read criticism in an impartial newspaper (note that rules out the Sun which is owned by the same man as Fox News that has decided to switch from Labour to support the Conservative Party). Secondly, do people vote for you because you convince people that your party knows what it is doing or that the other party doesn't?

Thankfully next to the message and on the reverse side of the leaflet they very briefly say what they say they will do. This I want to see.

On this same leaflet I counted the number of times they mentioned their party (Conservative) and the number of references to other parties. The scores were 13 to other and 5 to conservative. So from reading the leaflet I now know a little about what they want to do and I know exactly what is wrong with the other parties. Not like it had never occurred to me that political parties don't like each other.

Moving away from this one isolated leaflet I went onto the BBC News Website and this article got pride of place on the homepage:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8608535.stm. Moving to the Election homepage on the same site you see: Clegg attacks rivals and Cameron steps up NI tax attacks. Each of the parties attacks the others as a way to get a head up. That is how the system works.

The thing with a lot of these sorts of attacks is that they are not always followed up with well argued alternatives. For example watch the video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8606650.stm notice how much of the time he is attacking the other parties compared to the time spent talking about his party, what they offer and then substantiating his claims. Notice a problem?

I think that a politician's job is to lead the country in the right direction by arguing why their way is the right way. Yes, they should criticize the other parties to a degree but it should be the force of their policies that should convince voters.

The bottom line is: I don't care what you (political party people) think of the other parties (we know you hate them) I want to know what you will do and I want you to totally convince me that: 1) you know what you are talking about and 2) will do it.

Connor Davidson is a UK based writer.

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