Whyvote is a small Welsh village near Carmarthen, renowned for its particularly truculent Welsh nationalists, who have never achieved anything of any note whatsoever. Whatsoever, incidentally, is in Dorset.
The mistake that these Welsh nationalists made – believing that voting was pointless, because it always put the English in charge – is that not voting is in some way a counterpoint to pointlessness. But it’s not. It’s equally, if not more, pointless.
Any number of people will tell you that it’s enormously important to vote, at every opportunity. That several people in your immediate family have died to protect your right to vote and you should be jolly grateful. That if you don’t vote, you’ve no right to complain about anything, ever again, in your entire life. That not voting is intellectually indolent. That voting
is a civic duty and should be made compulsory and that, if you don’t vote, David Cameron will phone you up and say something like: “Let me be absolutely clear that it’s incredibly important”.
These are all good reasons to vote, especially the ones about honouring the sacrifices of your forebears and avoiding a phone call from David Cameron. But the real reason you should vote is that your vote always, somewhere and sometime, at some stage and in some circumstance, will annoy somebody. There is not a vote for anyone or any political party that won’t annoy others of other political persuasions, more than it will please the person you have voted for. And annoying all those other people is at the heart of the principle of parliamentary democracy.
Yes, it’s true that all those people who say those things in the bit two paragraphs back might pretend to be a bit annoyed
if you don’t vote – especially, allegedly, David Cameron. But they don’t really care, because they’re too busy counting the votes that they have got and making sure they’re more than other people have got. The only person you’ll please by not voting is Russell Brand. And he’s not standing for parliament and so won’t say thank you.
So be annoying. Daring, even. Vote.
