Before you all groan and scream not a political post please, it’s not. I think you probably realise from reading my Substack which side of the fence I am on. A little clue it’s not Rishi’s. We now have six weeks of flannel, not the terry towelling type. We will be subjected to commentators whipping themselves into a frenzy about the latest gossip from Westminster. Social media will get more and more vitriolic with conspiracy theories going into overdrive. We will have the spectacle of the political debates. You think they are making sense and saying something interesting. Then you realise at the end you still don’t know, or understand, the main policies of some\all of the parties and actually they said absolutely nothing.
Red/blue/yellow buses will start trundling round the country. Each bus will have politicians aboard smiling those fixed smiles. They always look like they have cramp in their cheek muscles or their latest Botox jab went wrong. My worst ever traffic jam, and believe you me I have been in a few over the years, was on the M4. I was stuck behind the Boris Bus Johnson used on his EU campaigning for a whole hour. Before you ask. However tempted I was, I did not jump out my car with a knitting needle to let his tyres down.
I want to be told the truth about the policies. How they are going to implement them? How much are they going to cost? What happens if politicians realise they don’t work? Will they honestly tell us they won’t work? I realise my last question is not an option. They blunder blindly on regardless of the cost and effectiveness of some policies. Certain flights to an African country spring to mind.
What I don’t want is Westminster tittle tattle. Lies from the press about who’s done what. The attacks on politicians, and even worse their families, on a personal level, regardless of which political party they belong to. School yard bully boy tactics. Yes, if a politician has committed a crime or been genuinely accused of a crime tell us, but the facts not the tittle tattle. I know I am being naive but I genuinely want the integrity of the press and politicians back into campaigning over the next 6 weeks. I just saw a thousand pink 🐖 🐷s fly past my window. They had exceedingly curly tails.
Rant from the old curmudgeon over … for now 😁.
You thought you’d escaped the rabbit 🐇 warren didn’t you because I was on a rant. Sorry, I got pulled down one. Voting is a right that has been hard won for a large number of us over the last few hundred years. Before 1918 only 58% of the male population were eligible to vote. They had to be resident in the UK for 12 months. This excluded the troops who were fighting overseas, even during the First World War. That fact is worth a pause to ponder 🤔 a while. ……………..Ponder Pause…………… There were also property and other restrictions on male voters. The Representation of the People Act 1918 removed these and extended voting to all men over 21 and male troops over 19. What about women? Those lesser beings were only allowed to vote, as part of the Act if they were over 30. An improvement, but why the age disparity? I’m not debating that one now.
As a woman I feel very strongly I must vote. I am not going into the history of the Suffrage Movement here. I will say women died to get me my vote. It wasn’t until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 was introduced that women over 21 were ‘allowed’ to vote. That is less than 100 years ago.
Women have the legal right to vote in every country and territory in the world except one The Vatican City. Whilst women may have the legal right to vote this does not necessarily mean that right can be used. Many countries for example Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia & Zanzibar make it almost impossible for women to exercise their voting rights. In 2021, Grazia published a short, but powerful article called Here Are The Countries Where It Is Really Difficult to Vote. It lists how some women are stopped from voting. In 2015, in Zanzibar a number of women were divorced by their husbands for refusing to obey their husband’s command not to vote. This resulted in many other women failing to vote because they feared the same treatment. Women also feared violence at the polls.
I strongly believe, what ever political colour you are, we must all place a cross on the ballot paper. We cannot complain if we haven’t voted. Remember it is less than 100 years since women were able to vote and only just over 100 years since all men were able to vote.
I promise faithfully on the heads of two black labradors and one french bulldog not to make my Substack political over the coming weeks. More than anything, not only is it your escape from relentless political blather, it is mine as well. Ok, I will admit my Substack is a load of blather anyway.
What have I learnt - we should all exercise our right to vote regardless of gender. We are the lucky ones.
How would you feel if you were refused the right to vote?
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I'm with you every step on the need to register and vote. It is particularly important to encourage in senior school years. I can remember being so proud to apply for a vote as soon as I could.
Just a word about conflating your England experience with the UK. Scotland, NI and to some extent, Wales, all have options to vote for parties seeking independence. They are not the lunatic fringe of English nationalism; our politicians, far from perfect, present us with a very different vision for the future and in Scotland and NI are in government. So, here, your simple red/blue divide with merest hint of yellow is irrelevant. Like everyday sexism it is everyday England-ism. Just observing.
When I heard the announcement yesterday, I had a brief panic when I realised I would be out of the country. I have resisted a postal vote as I have always wanted my children to see me voting. However what I found out yesterday is that you can request a postal vote for just one election, and it is really easy, I did it in 5 minutes with my NI number. I feel so grateful to the Suffragettes for their sacrifice and I wish more people would engage with the democratic process, even with the terrible state of our politics these days. Great piece Jo x