…and while I was watching SuperSize Me…

…the leaders of the three main parties were being interviewed over on Question Time – thank God for the BBC archiving such things, so we can all watch it online, and find out what was said…

The election is next Thursday, DON’T FORGET – the polling stations open early, and are open ’til late.

I’m a big supporter of exercising your democratic right to vote. Not least of all because low voter turnout helps the fascists, and we don’t even want the BNP to get their deposit back, let alone get any kind of political kudos for a good placing. (they aren’t actually going to get any MPs).

However, having read some of the stuff on notapathetic.com, I can see some great reasons for not voting. People who see it as an insult to their right to vote for them to have to choose between three flavours of dogshit, people who feel like a low voter turnout will show just how disillusioned we all are with UK politics (we could well be heading for the lowest voter turnout ever anyway). It’s an interesting site, and well worth a visit.

As it is, I’m going to vote – my approach is vote for the best you can find, and then hassle them to do a good job. It’s like the US election – Kerry was hardly the most glowing lefty on the political scene, but at least he could have been called on to instigate some policy decisions that were in keeping with the democratic tradition… Trying the same thing with Bush, you’d just have to suggest that he be a little less obvious about his military action abroad, and take the Reagan method of backing right wing paramilitary groups instead of sending in your own troups for anything other than training…

Anyway, I digress – please vote, keep the Tories out – they need to know that spreading racist lies is no way to run an election campaign – and let Blair know that illegal wars that lead to the deaths of over 100,000 civilians are not acceptable, and can’t be supported. I’d suggest checking out either Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru or whoever else offers an anti-war alternative (I can’t bring myself to back Respect, the unlikely alliance of the Muslim Association of Great Britain and the Socialist Workers Party – I’ve never been a fan of the SWP, and don’t like political groups with a strict religous agenda – smells too much like the GOP in the States…)

Soundtrack – more of me and Cleveland.

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