The Gray Monk

« Corpus Christi | Main | A rollercoaster week .... »

June 11, 2004

A secret ballot?

I may be misunderstanding something fundamental here. Indeed, I think I may have no understanding at all of "modern" democracy, but one principle I really thought I had a grasp of was that the ballot paper was secret and not a record of who I vote for or how I vote. It seems I have that wrong in spades in Mr Blair's "modern" Britain, for my ballot can be tracked!

It has always been thus in some form, but only with enormous difficulty could the number of the ballot paper have been used to identify the person who used it. Not any more. In insisting on forcing about a quarter of the population to vote in a postal ballot, they have made fraudulent use of the language! Quite apart from the issue of potential fraudulent use and "guided" voting where someone offers to "help" fill in the ballot paper, these papers are most emphatically NOT secret. Your name, address and signature all appear on the ballot paper - and justb to make sure we know who voted with it - you have to get someone to confirm that you are who you say you are! This is secret?

No wonder there are already charges being made that Labour's footsoldiers were out in force making sure that anyone they could get at was marking the right boxes on the paper. And it gets worse - some employees have revealed that they were told by their employers that they voted anything except Labour at the expense of their jobs. The one good thing about it is that it seems to have misfired - Labour are losing seats at an unprecedented rate - a pity it's only in the Local Government arena and not in Parliament, but hopefully it is an indication of things to come.

Of course proving any of this will be very difficult and that buffoon who rejoices in the title of Deputy Prime Minister will no doubt have his army of civil servants rushing about manipulating the statistics to hide both their incompetence and the fact that this is a monumental exercise in gerrymandering. Funny, a few years ago some Conservative councillors were prosecuted following accusations by a Labour-supporting member of the National Audit Office over the sale of former council flats to known Tory voters. I wonder if we can expect to see any similar accusations from that source now that Labour's blatant gerrymandering is so apparent. Some how I doubt it because the people who should expose this sort of thing have been sat in Labour's pocket for years. Where did you think all the leaked secret documents came from? Father Christmas?

Personally I describe myself these days as a political cynic. There is no democracy in this country anymore - it died as soon as Party politicians were imposed at Local Government level. Parliament is not democratic either - in a true democracy the elected member is directly representing and directly responsible too the people/community/group who elected them, in a Party-dominated Democracy their allegiance is to a Party and its ideology (declared and undeclared), and the only time the electorate are considered is when an election is looming. As soon as it is out of the way, it's snouts back in the trough, boyo, we can safely ignore the plebs for another four years.

If Mr Blair and his worthless cronies truly wish to widen democracy and increase turnout among voters, he will need to do several things. First; remove the system of "whips" which forces elected members to toe party lines; next; introduce a true democracy where only those policies which a majority of the elctorate have endorsed can be implemented; make provision for direct access to electronic and secret balloting and consultation systems; remove the party domination of parliament and make provision for direct election of non-partisan candidates (who must be required to resign their seats immediately if they join a party) who should hold at least one third of the seats in any parliament; and finally, cut the civil service by two thirds and remove them from the actual management process of anything. The Upper Chamber - The Lords - should be directly elected and its members should be drawn from the Hereditary and the Life Peerage - but not from the "Party of the Day" cronies list. If this House was to be established as an Independent body with the power to hold a check on the House of Commons - and its blatant contempt for the democratic process under this present government, there could be a balance struck with perhaps a one third representation of Peers elected by Commerce, Industry, and Trade Unions and a further Third sitting elected by the Judiciary and the Churches.

There should a reduction in the number of elected bodies as well - these do not work democratically and are simply stuffed with people feathering their nests at the expense of tax payers. Fewer and more meaningful bodies (with appropriate restraints on them) would make more sense and be less wasteful than the layers of Parish, Town, Borough, District, County, and Regional Councils and Authorities, most of whom have no real powers and are simply there as a sop to "local" representation.

No, I do not believe that the widening of the use of the very public system of postal ballots will improve turnout. If anything it is likely to put people off altogether as soon as they realise that the local bully boys on the Labour Street Committee can check to see that you voted the "right" way. Reforming the House of Commons and the Civil Service to make them truly democratic and answerable might. Somehow, though, I doubt that Mr Blair or his cronies would really want that at all!

So, is this postal system still a "secret ballot"? You must be joking!

Posted by The Gray Monk at June 11, 2004 01:19 PM

Comments

Posted by: Matthew at June 12, 2004 10:08 PM

Posted by: The Gray Monk at June 13, 2004 09:29 PM