Diary of a first-time non-voter, 16 May
'Surely it's more apathetic and lazy to vote for a party you don't really support just because you feel you ought to, than it is to refuse to vote with very good reason?'
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This week I felt myself falling into the abyss of voting just because my parents are hassling me to vote – but then two young(ish) ladies saved me.
The first was overeater not-so-anonymous Geri Halliwell. Her cameo, serving tea but not cake to pensioners in New Labour’s party political broadcast, gave me yet another reason not to vote for them.
You see, my boyfriend and I have made eating all the pies our latest crusade. Only the other evening we managed a double half-pounder cheeseburger and a mint chocolate Cornetto between us during the 10-minute walk from my house to the pub for an after-dinner ‘two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please’.
Bridget Jones couldn’t count high enough to log that number of calories, so given that we now can’t kiss anymore without our stomachs affectionately rubbing first, how could I possibly vote for a party that has skinny icon number one as its celebrity attraction? It would be utterly against my principles.
One person not put off Labour by Ms Halliwell’s starved-of-food-and-any-political-importance TV appearance was Eleanor Harte, the lovely fresh-faced ‘first time voter’ of the Guardian newspaper’s panel. My antithesis, smiling into the camera on a sunny day with her natural coloured hair and absence of make-up, listed her voting intentions as Labour. ‘But I am not a big supporter of any of the parties.’
And I thought I was the uninterested one? No doubt Eleanor Harte will get a round of applause for being responsible and involved by marking her ballot paper on polling day, while I get relegated to ‘lazy’ status for not doing so. It doesn’t seem fair at all. Surely it’s more apathetic and lazy to vote for a party you don’t really support just because you feel you ought to, than it is to refuse to vote with very good reason?
If I start doing lots of yoga, maybe people will be more likely to believe that I can be bothered to get out of bed. It’s just that I want more from my vote on election day than a sticker that says I have cast it.
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