Police and Crime Commissioners

[IRF]

I am pleased to see that in my area people are being employed to push leaflets through everybody's door, and other people employed to push polling cards through the door a couple of days later. Soon I expect that other people will be employed to push my postal vote through the door.

I am delighted to see that the government is giving these people employment and putting this much-needed stimulus money into the economy

As far as the poll itself, I intend to write 'none of the above' on my postal vote and send it back so that somebody else can be gainfully employed to count it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I am pleased to see that in my area people are being employed to push leaflets through everybody's door, and other people employed to push polling cards through the door a couple of days later. Soon I expect that other people will be employed to push my postal vote through the door.

I am delighted to see that the government is giving these people employment and putting this much-needed stimulus money into the economy

As far as the poll itself, I intend to write 'none of the above' on my postal vote and send it back so that somebody else can be gainfully employed to count it.

Yes; "spoiling" a ballot paper is sadly the only way in the present system to show an active "abstention" (as opposed to a passive "couldn't give a monkeys").

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i find the gist of this thread highly appealing if taken as a description of our entire democratic predicament ... who can one vote for now?
in the past i think i would have sided with ff's argument, that marginal preference is the issue, but that now feels to me like marginalising oneself too ...
so at an awkward and advancing age one faces the choice of revolution or withdrawal into an uncaring dream state ... let the youngsters deal with it eh ....
this police commissioner business is about as meaningful as Blair's devolution policy .... and when something as meaningful as a major constitutional change is put to a referendum most of us [ eg who live in England Wales and NI] can not vote ... if i could walk and remember stuff i would go for revolution, might just any way .... i am never going to vote again


on the other hand i had reason to make representation to our Town Council about a planning matter, there were twelve or so local people, spending their evening ploughing through a tidal wave of bumpf making small decisions that excite big feelings, relentlessly ignored or calumnied by us locals et al, and i was struck by how their work mattered to us, how we colluded to ignore both the necessity and the act of doing it, and hid behind our contempt from any shred of responsibility ourselves ... they were indeed local worthies