This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice.
14. Poll-itics
Well, I did a quick little poll this week amongst group of 26 professional people aged 20 – 35. Just to ask them what they thought were the most and least important issues to the following parties: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, Socialist, BNP and UKIP.
The results produced from this (admittedly tiny) group were nothing ground breaking – but within that lies my point…
Labour was known for rating education. Conservative was known for supporting commerce; but both of these parties were very interested in discrediting their opponent. There was also lots of apathy. We seemed aware that there was a lot of smoke and mirrors stuff going on to fool us.
But that’s okay though. After all, that is what politics is about. Aint it?
So why don't people vote for the others then? Well actually:
Greens – generally it was thought that the green party isn't realistic about anything else other than green issues – which would mean that they are not formed enough to lead the country.
Socialists – there wasn’t very much known about them, apart from a few people saying they were unrealistic communists.
Lib Dems, well they are bit sit-on-the-fence and a probably all right, but actually would never be able to run the country because they are not big enough.
BNP are seen as "racists”.
UKIP are also seen as "racists” who pretend to not to be.
So – that basically means that this group of people don’t think other parties (particularly the Green party and Lib Dem) are realistic or strong enough to get in. Or if they are, no one else is voting for them anyway. And although we know Conservatives and Labour are just going to say whatever they want to win votes, we don’t trust them. (Is it actually expectable that we don't trust politicians?)
It's almost as if we think everyone else is fooled by them but we are not. But actually we are all thinking the same thing. We just can't do anything about it, because no on else is, and it won't make a difference. But we can – that's the hilarious bit! When it's fun things like joining Facebook groups so that some bloke calls his new born Spider Pig, or getting Jedi classed as the religion it so deserves to be, or the whopping numbers of Danny Wallace’s Join Me – we can do it – if it’s fun it can be a trend and we all get bang on it. But when it comes to all voting for the best, most trusted, most earnest party to lead the country we can't be bothered. Really?
This week’s niceness
I risked my new shoes to give a push start to a car on Lewisham high street.
By Liz Akers
