Election 2010 (From The Northern Echo)
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Election 2010
11:20am Friday 7th May 2010
6.49 am. May 6th. There’s a bang on my bedroom door. I wake up startled to the sound of my dad asking me to run to the polling station with him. His aim, like last year, was to be the first voter in the area. I donned my sports gear and we began to jog down. Unfortunately a man was slightly ahead of us and I laughed to myself as I watched my dad try a sprint finish to pip this man at the post. He didn’t manage. We were in fact fourth to vote at our polling station. However I take great pride in being the first female and youngest person there.
As an 18 year old, and therefore a first-time voter, I can't help wondering if elections were always this exciting? Everywhere I go in college, students seem to be talking politics. Perhaps the levels of interest are due to the fact that this election does not have an obvious winner- this really is a three-horse race.
I personally have found it frustrating the number of young people who have said they are not voting. Their reasons (being disillusioned by recent scandals and feeling that none of the politicians will be able to sort out the country and its economic crisis), seem lazy to me. It seems ridiculous that a young person will happily forget about how the government introduced the minimum wage when they get their pay slip. They don’t think about how politicians created the NHS when they break their leg playing football. They don’t look at our doctors and nurses and make the connection between immigration and having people to work in our services and help the economy. The old idea of “If you don't vote, you can't complain” springs to mind.
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