Having spent several days recently out and about in Sudbury East and Waldingfield canvassing I do agree with the recently expressed view of the Archbishop of Canterbury (with whom I rarely have much sympathy) that the parliamentary expenses scandal is posing a threat to Democracy.
While only a few people that we have met have been actively rude and aggressive, far more, of all political persuasions, are saying that their feelings of anger and disgust are such that they will not go out and vote at all. Now, to some extent I take this with a pinch of salt. The turnout in local and EU elections, in the absence of a simultaneous General Election, is generally pathetically low. One knows that of the people one speaks to on the doorstep possibly only one in three will make it to the polling booth on the day.* Nonetheless the trend is worrying.
Winston Churchill said that democracy was ‘a very poor form of Government, but better than all of the alternatives’. Having spent a good deal of time in Russia, where it is arguable that despite the fig leaf that is the current political system, there has never been true democracy, and observing the current goings on in Burma, I can only agree with this view.
So please, whichever party you support, do go out and vote on June 4th.
*Rather higher in Waldingfield Ward according to 2007 voting statistics.
