Voting

I vote. I've always voted, ever since I was old enough. My first election was 2005, when I was 20 (so long ago!). I was so excited - I don't know why, it just felt momentous! I voted Labour, because my mum told me to. I know, that's not how politics is supposed to work, but I knew fuck all about politics. My school - a very highly rated grammar school - didn't bother to teach us about the electoral system. It was vaguely alluded to in history, mainly in terms of National Socialism and the birth of Parliament back in the middle ages (the Glorious Revolution was also left out). We had one lesson, in general studies aged 17, where they told us about political parties in the UK, and a Conservative MEP came in to tell us about being an MEP once. I tried to boycott this on account of burgeoning Communist sympathy, but to no avail. DISSENT IS NOT TOLERATED IN HIGHLY RATED GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. There were no politics-linked courses available to us either at GCSE or A level. So, it's not really surprising that I was clueless.
And it's not surprising my mum told me to vote Labour either. I grew up poor. Not so poor that I was starved to death and freezing, but poor enough to rarely have new clothes, that food was spread thin, that my mum would get in a terrible state every August at the idea of fitting us all out for school again. Too poor for university. Too poor to learn to drive. That sort of poor. My parents squarely blamed our poverty on the financial crash of 1988, and Thatcher, but were culturally Labour voters anyway. My grandparents were agricultural workers on one side, and industrial workers on the other. There was, and is, no money in my family.

In the 2010 election, things had changed. I was now married, with a little boy, not poor and more independent of mind. The area I lived in was staunchly Conservative - landowners and landlords usually are - and I knew I definitely wasn't one of them. I believed in fairness, and equality. I believed that people who needed help should get help. I believed in a better future for my children, however they ended up. I voted for the Lib Dems, based on disillusionment with the lies of Tony Blair and Labour, and the faint promise of Nick Clegg to actually change things. Alas, I was wrong.

This time, everything's changed again. I'm back to being poor. The coalition has made life many times harder for anyone without privilege. I'd rather gnaw off my arm than vote for the unholy alliance of Cameron and Osborne. UKIP offer a right-wing alternative, with no immigrants and loads of money...from somewhere. The Lib Dems have some good politicians, but are no longer credible.  The Greens can wave and shriek "we're here" as much as they like, but they're not credible either. I don't know if Ed Miliband can change anything, but I like the cut of his jib. I don't care if he can't eat a bacon sandwich in a refined manner. He could stick a spoon in his ear and sing the Hokey Cokey before every meal for all I care. It's not about him, it's about the ideology. It's about fairness, equity and justice. And unseating the Nemesis.

Elections are not about certainties. They are not about fear, no matter how many times David Cameron points at the SNP, shaking and gibbering. They are full of lies and deceit and broken promises. But they are also our only hope at having a say. They are our only hope of changing anything. It is a leap of faith to make an X next to someone you've never met, and say "I hope you can represent us and that you change things for the better."

But it's all we have.

The newspapers tell us it's a waste of time to vote, that we cannot make a difference, that a landslide is impossible and a coalition is almost certain (NB: they also said this in 1997, days before a major Labour landslide), that we will all DIE if legitimately elected ministers are allowed to legally rule the country, that the NHS is definitely safe, that it's not safe, that it is safe HONEST GUV, that we cannot trust a man with a face full of sandwich to run the country, or a man who was once in the Bullingdon club, or a man who drinks more than he speaks sense, or ANY WOMEN AT ALL. The newspapers lie. The newspapers are full of more shit than the politicians. Shun the media at this difficult time.

I don't care personally who you vote for, but I hope that you vote, if you can. There is a huge swathe of people, mostly younger people, who have no idea about politics and think their lack of knowledge deprives them of the moral right to vote. There is a most excellent quiz here that tells you who you should vote for based on policies rather than a bunch of faces. You don't have to be Jeremy Paxman to have a say in how our country is run. Politics is for everyone. And the idea of everyone voting scares the living daylights out of the government, and the media. So do it.