Elections and politics

I dont vote anymore. All political parties will screw us over, just in different ways so why on earth would I actually walk down to a polling station and actually vote for people who are going to make my life worse and who don't care about me?

Autism friendly policies - Stop getting NT people to assess us for things like PIP and disability benefits. None of the assesors have any knowledge of or training in autism so are not qualified to make decisions on us. 

Have more training for employers so they know how to manage autistic people at work. We could be of so much use in the workplace but we are driven away by stupid systems and policies that we are not able to cope with. For instance, I once worked for a company that insisted on making autistic VOLUNTEERS go through performance reviews even if they were in tears and having panic attacks beforehand

For my money, Labour are worse than the Tories. At least the Tories are honest enough to admit they dont care about us. Labour are like a wolf in sheeps clothing, tricking us into thinking they care when actually they are as uncaring as the Tories. They are both truly awful though and the country is screwed under either of them 

And either of them are likely to get in if you don't vote. At least spoil your ballot!!

out_of_step said:

And either of them are likely to get in if you don't vote.

Yep.

We aren't in Russia where voting means nothing or Afghanistan where if you are female  you are a prisoner.

Votes give us power to effect change.

I see it as a privilege of a genuinely democratic (ie not corrupted democracy) society and treasure it.

I do wish we had proportional representation though.

I think voter turnout is usally less than 50%. In Australia it is mandatory I believe. 

Its a very interesting question. I think if political parties knew that the whole country was voting they would be forced to be more accountable and actually create policies that benefited people and improved the country 
Under the present system they can be more complacent and just assume that the same people will vote every time and ignore everyone else 

none of the above is there.... it is voting for someone listed as "independant" .... independant isnt a party, its not brexit, its not racist.... its a local stand alone person who doesnt have a party....

when you all vote for a independant, if we all vote for that we destroy party power, we destroy party politics... you get true change... when no party has any vote, you get change, you have individuals standing by their own policy, no more parties... you get change... a system wide change.

I wonder what would happen if voting were mandatory and there was a "none of the above" option. I don't know what turnout of recent elections is like, but if we are talking of the population as a whole, the "majority" party are probably not often that. 

Very true. You only have to look at Weimar Germany to see the mess proportional representation can lead to 

I see your point but I dont believe we can effect change by voting when all the major parties are much of a muchness with similar motives

Proportional representation isn’t a panacea though.

We have a form of proportional representation in the Scottish parliament but the result of that is the Scottish “Green Party” were allowed into coalition with the minority SNP govt. They had hardly any votes but were able to impose some very extreme and unpopular policies because the SNP needed their support. 

Meanwhile the majority of voters have been left completely unrepresented for 17 years now.

PS i put Green Party in quotes because the environment is very far down their list of priorities. This is a party that fell out with Green peace and the UK Green Party.

Proportional representation isn’t a panacea though.

We have a form of proportional representation in the Scottish parliament but the result of that is the Scottish “Green Party” were allowed into coalition with the minority SNP govt. They had hardly any votes but were able to impose some very extreme and unpopular policies because the SNP needed their support. 

Meanwhile the majority of voters have been left completely unrepresented for 17 years now.

PS i put Green Party in quotes because the environment is very far down their list of priorities. This is a party that fell out with Green peace and the UK Green Party.

Very true. You only have to look at Weimar Germany to see the mess proportional representation can lead to