Thanks for not voting! Thankfully I didn't have to even try not voting.

We have a travesty of democracy in this country. In any other set-up, like a company or a charity, anything less than 51% of a vote would be a non starter and yet we consistently have governments in power with much less support than that. If you look at the electorate as a whole the situation is even worse. The present government in power only has 21% electorate support and a recent survey found that 66% say UK government is not by the will of the people.

With minority support governments making up their own rules as they go along, in order to sustain their power, and virtually no opposition, what hope is there for future reform? Why would anyone with any sense endorse such a system by voting?

I stood as a Green candidate in Katesgrove, Reading and got 221 voes, which was over a third of what Labour got and they won. On an individual level I was quite pleased, but when I saw that 28% had turned out I was furious. We are establishing local councils of the flimsiest of mandates and it seems unseemly that they have legitimacy to preside over our towns.

By not voting people think they are registering a protest against the system, but this isn't the case. It is more true to say that if you don't vote you are saying that you are entrusting those who do vote to make the right decision, therefore rather than protesting against the system you are actually endorseing it.

I am not happy with the way this is as there no way in this system that you can register a protest when you should be able to. What are the solutions? I don't know myself. People suggest making voting compulsory which I think is wrong. It has also been suggested that we have a 'None of the Above', which I am not sure would help with turn out. Initially I think it would be a novelty and people might turn out just to cast that vote, but in time people will get over that and not vote and we would see the same sort of turn outs that we are getting now.

There is loads more that could be said about this and I could go on about representation rather than delegation; anarcho-syndicalism; participatory budgets, but I would quite like to hear more about what others have got to say before I go on. Either way, it is clear that we need to do as much to expose our "democracy" for the con that it is.

Louise

If less than 50% of the electorate vote the Politucal system has been Democratically rejected. The seat should be vacant. When more than 50% of the seats are vacant, or less than 50% of the national electorate vote, the elected body should not sit.

Corrupt degenerates called Politicians are determined to hang onto their fat salaries and outrageous pensions. They will over-ride the Democratic will and prevent the Crown declaring that the will of the Electorate is that a State of Anarchy be declared, that the Civil service and the Armed forces have a duty to see that it works. the Monarch will be prevented from fullfilling the duty of a representative Monarchy by aforesaid corrupt degenerates who now undermine the built in controls of the Jtudges and the House of Lords.

There was only one correction needed to make the old House of Lords a better place. All the backwoods Lords who flooded in to vote their own self interest over Poll Tax should have permanently lost their hereditary seats and been charged in just the same way as a corrupt Councillor voting when they had a personal benefit would have been.

Blair is building Global Fascism, to enable that he is corrupting the British Political system to introduce fascist measures that Thatcher dared not. Anway, I must get on with the Junketing Politicians squandering VATpayer's money on their May 9th celebration of the EUropean Union rip off they so greedily profit from.