However, I didn’t do this as I thought that other people
would be far more educated about it all and able to write more intelligently
and persuasively than I could hope to do so. This is partly because when I was
at school, there was very little Politics taught. You could do an A-level but
you probably wouldn’t opt to do so if you didn’t already have an interest in
it, and they didn’t seem to do much to encourage an interest in it prior to that
time.
Last night, around 10.01pm, I became quite down. The exit
polls revealed to us by David Dimbleby were a shock to most people and a
disappointment to me, as I was hoping that Dave and Georgey would be kicked out
of power as I am ideologically opposed to almost all of the coalition’s
policies.
As it turned out, hoping that something with them had gone
wrong proved futile – in fact, they turned out to be even worse than expected
(with the exception of Nigel Farridge not winning in South Thanet).
I didn’t stay up the whole night, but I was close to it. As
it went on, I was getting more and more down about it all and as it was the
middle of the night, everything seemed much worse in the way it does when you
start thinking about things in the middle of the night. When I woke after a
couple of hours sleep, I was less down about it all (I still believe we’re
screwed as the bad men got in, though) and felt more like I should try to
participate more in the democracy we are lucky enough to have in this country
and try to make myself more educated and also attempt to make a small amount of
positive change.
So I made a vow to myself that I would do that, and this
blog is the first step. By feeling like I should update it regularly, I will
hopefully guilt myself into not slacking off. I am planning to update it quite
frequently (I’ve not worked out how frequently yet – it’s only been a few
hours) and I’m aware that if I spam my Facebook and Twitter every time I do, it
might get annoying. So I will only do so when something that I think is more
interesting happens. The rest of the time, you can just check to see if I’ve
done anything, or follow my new Twitter account – and give me a virtual kick if it appears like I’m slacking.
As I mentioned, I don’t know much about politics. Most of
what I have learned is either through studying social philosophy at uni – which
is what sparked my interested – or through my 17 years as a voter trying to get
information on who or what I might be voting on.
I expect this to be a story of my journey and understanding.
Both my thoughts as I attempt to learn about the political process and current
politics as well as any experiences I may have as I attempt to engage with the
political process. I have a bought a book called The Politics Book which
I’m working my through in an attempt to understand different theories, the
history of politics and to question my beliefs. I may discuss topics that I
have been reading.
Part of my vow is that I will get more involved. Even if it
is just speaking to my MP or councillors, or whether it is engaging in protests
(my former housemate is an activist and if I’m honest, I was always a bit
jealous of his enthusiasm, drive and passion), or campaigning for a political
party (my only experience here is spending an evening helping leaflet for the
Green Party when I was at uni in Canterbury).
If anyone else fancies having a forum to write on, I am open to other contributors as well, or if you want to join me on any part of my journey, you are more than welcome.
If anyone else fancies having a forum to write on, I am open to other contributors as well, or if you want to join me on any part of my journey, you are more than welcome.
A note on the name of this blog: it’s from this awesome Skunk Anansie song. For those of you who weren’t around in the 90s, they were
wicked. Check them out. I wanted to go for the less sweary subtitle of the
song, Everything’s Political, but someone has already taken that Blogger name
but never used it. I have however taken out the naughty word because a) my mum might read it and b) I can't be arsed to find out Blogger's stance on sweary URLS.
No comments:
Post a Comment