Author Archives: RIchie Edwards

Opinion: On joining the Liberal Democrats and being a Normtrooper

I’ve always had an interest in politics. I’ve never obsessed about it, like I’ve obsessed about football, but I’ve always read and followed political stories and I’ve certainly always voted. My vote hasn’t always been heard, but that’s another issue.

I feel strongly about environmental issues. We must take more action, and soon, to tackle climate change. We, as a family of four, only fill our black landfill bin to less than a quarter full once a fortnight, but our blue recycling bin is always full to overflowing. More can be done by our district council though. A friend of ours can put all the recyclables that we can into their bin(s), plus their recycling bins can take glass and food waste. I also believe in clean energy so choose my energy supplier accordingly, and I’m paper free wherever I can be.

About that other issue I mentioned earlier, I’m also in favour of electoral reform. I live in a safe seat that’s been Tory since it was created in 1983. As I said above, I’ve always voted, but I’ve never voted for either my current MP, or his predecessor. You might wonder what the point is in voting How can it be right that a party who only got 36.9% of the vote got 50.9% of the seats, but another party got 12.6% of the vote, and only 0.2% of the seats. In Scotland, around 50% of the electorate are represented by 56 MPs, but the other 50% are represented by just 3 MPs. The ‘First Past The Post’ system worked fine when more than 90% of people voted for only 2 of the parties, but that has changed, and so must the way we vote, to engage the electorate, and let everyone feel they have a voice.

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