Tactical voting is the miserable business of giving your
vote to someone you don’t really like, but on the whole find less objectionable
than someone you fear might otherwise win. If you’re feeling the pressure to
vote tactically, it probably doesn’t leave you inspired about local politics or
feeling too good about your democratic rights and powers. What is the point,
when all you can do is pick between a mouldy apple and an off banana?
The idea of tactical voting upholds the notion that really
anything other than the two main parties is a wasted vote. I was having this
argument with my Gran twenty years ago, and little has changed. The two
decaying fruit options have got so suspect that it’s hard to tell which
unpleasant sludge is which, to take that metaphor just a little further. There
are some differences between their policies and you might find one less repellent
than the other, but most of their underlying concepts are the same.
Vote for the main parties and either way you’re voting for the
same fundamental attitude to money. The same ideas about what money is and how
it works. Ideas the Bank of England has questioned. Labour didn’t sort out the
bankers when they had the chance, the Tories won’t either. Public ownership of
the banks, and a fairer, more egalitarian attitude to money isn’t available in
either shade. Go over every policy area and you’ll find that most of the time,
the two main parties are taking about doing more or less of pretty much the
same things.
If, on looking about you, your impression is that all is
just fabulous and that more or less of the same thing is going to be fine, then
I’m probably not going to persuade you. If, however, you’re a bit worried about
the future, the carbon based economy, the cost of living, the state of
democracy, unemployment, banking, quality of life, your children’s prospects...
then that absence of radical thinking might just trouble you. Exactly how
tactical is it to be voting for the party you find slightly less alarming than
the other party? If you want real change, you’re going to have to vote for it.
If you’re not sure who might best represent your real views
and preferences, have a look at this site, which can asses you based on how you
respond to different policies, and might give you an idea of how to vote. Or if
you happen to appreciate mouldy fruit, by all means, stay with what you know.
