The Population and Politics

Politics. Politics. Politics.  Politics is constantly in our faces, on the news, in magazines, in newspapers, in daily conversation, in debate, in general day-to-day life; and with the UK General Election coming up in May 2015 it is going to become more and more prominent.  However, despite our lives being run by governments, and despite politics being a large part of all of our lives, are we as a population really engaging with politics any more?

65.1% of the population voted in the last general election in 2010.  My guess is that less people will vote in 2015, and my reasoning is that people are bored of politics - or at least politics as it currently stands.  Politicians bicker, new reporters hype up the conflicts between different parties, politicians hear through the reporters what another politician has said, and then they bicker again.  In more regular occurrences, you have to ask yourself, how often do you hear two politicians from opposite parties actually debate and discuss politics?  On a recent question time, Conservative communities and local government minister Penny Mordaunt MP, Labour's shadow international development secretary Mary Creagh MP, the leader of UKIP Nigel Farage MEP, comedian and campaigner Russell Brand, and Times columnist Camilla Cavendish all appeared on the show.  If you watched it you'll know that Penny Mordaunt and Mary Creagh pretty much just picked at each other throughout the show, pretty much avoided any question aimed at them, and generally made damn sure everyone was even more tired of their tedious bickering than they were before they even started. (N.B. Can we just take a moment to congratulate Camilla Cavendish, a journalist, on remaining unbiased, and the voice of reason throughout the show!)

The Labour and Conservative parties are at each others necks and people are bored of it.  If you ask most young people, and probably most mature adults, what they think of politicians, they will tell you that they are childish, constantly arguing, and all the same.  This is what politics has become - monotonous.  We hear the two main parties insult each other every year, and quite frankly people are becoming disengaged with it because of it.

However, where it used to be that people are tired of politics in general, people now begin to realise that it is mostly the main three parties (Lab, Cons, Lib Dem) that follow this same monotonous bickering, meaning that smaller parties are beginning to be listened to.  This can be seen with the rapidity with which UKIP have gained followers in the last year or so, and also on a smaller scale the Greens.  Two opposite minor parties getting more attention due to the failures of the major parties. Positive for sure.

The question is, will people become more engaged or less.  The answer is quite clear.  Whilst the two major parties (Lab, Cons), and sometimes the third (Lib Dem), continue to rule the political world, the bickering will continue, and due to this people will do one of two things.  Firstly, they will become disengaged, completely uninterested in modern day politics and will withdraw; the second option, is that people will look elsewhere, see the rise of the Greens and UKIP.  Either way, the political scene will change.  It might not happen yet and most probably not this election, but in the near future we will see the disengaging population become the saviour of British politics, and when this happens, we will see a change in the way that society is governed - we just have to hope it goes the correct way, fingers crossed.