Have they tried sanctions?

Voter apathy is growing. The last two general elections saw record low numbers voting, even when it had been made easier by postal voting. In 2005 only a third of the 18 to 24 year-olds voted.


They were offered free iPods with which to vote, (did they actually carry through with this wheeze at great cost?), so you would not even have to leave your chair and post a freepost vote in the post box. Hazel Blears, I think, suggested free doughnuts! In the bare results of one ward which I saw, only about half the postal votes were returned by post. (Some could, I admit, have been used on the day in person.)

All this suggests the many are not motivated to vote. Should we pay them to vote? Could we use other incentives, -" participation in a large prize lottery if you vote", a discount on your rates, shopping vouchers, etc.?

Or could we use sanctions? In some countries voting is compulsory. After all, courageous men and women struggled over many years for a full adult suffrage, and it's an insult to their memory of we do not vote.

Surely a better suggestion is to inquire why so many do not vote. Is there a clue from the million who marched in protest through London in opposition to the Iraq War, or the half million who marched against the hunting ban. Are these the same who do in fact vote in elections?

I suggest that the difference between marches and voting is that the marchers feel that they might just make something happen, the people with power might notice their message. Non-voters have the assumption that their vote will not change anything.

The European Parliament to which we elect MEPs has little power, except to sign off the accounts, which they have refused for 12 years. Otherwise the MEPs spend their sessions in the chamber rubber stamping bills which have been prepared by unelected ministers and functionaries.

At Westminster, much has been delegated to over 1,000 quangos who run our daily lives. What remains is increasingly dictated by Brussels, or decided by the prime minister-dictator of the day and the small coterie who surround him. His whips then compel the ordinary members of the governing party to vote for the bills. They turn up for the divisions (voting times) regularly, without having taken part in the debates or even knowing much about the matter under discussion. If one party or another has a large majority in you constituency, then why bother to vote, and if they have a very small vote share, again why vote?

We might expect turnout for local elections to be better than for general elections. After all voters know immediately the effects of policies, and they live among the councillors. In fact turnout is even lower, in some places as low as 20%.

Does this threaten my thesis that voting is discouraged because it never changes anything? Not at all! So much that local councils do is determined for them by instructions and conditions which come with grants from central government. The local councils have lost much autonomy. Councillors individually have lost even more. From some idiotic laws introduced by Pie-eater Prescott, councillors must not be involved in local issues, or this will debar them from speaking or voting.

So what could be done? Voting has to have effect, or it is discouraged.

There will need to be reforms in parliament, so that MPs challenge the executive. Seats on select committees, and their chairmanships, must be by secret ballot in parliament, not by whips. Debated subjects must not be almost entirely decided by the executive. There must be free votes on this. And Brussels? Perhaps I had better not say, and try to keep my blood pressure down.

A number of other things could be done - primaries for each party, so the whole community decides who stands. There could be recalls - when an unsatisfactory MP is made to face re-election without waiting for the next general election. Why not binding referenda?

Why not wrest power away from Westminster and give much more autonomy to local government and local people?

If they feel that their vote will matter, may lead to change in the desired direction or thwart change in an undesirable direction, I can almost guarantee that more people will take interest and bother to vote. It would certainly do something about those self-important, self-seeking timid individuals on parliamentary benches as well! Quite a gain!