Brits 'should be forced to vote'

The Institute for Public Policy Research group have just come to the conclusion that voting should be made compulsory in the UK as a way of stemming the low turnouts at recent elections.

Ben Rogers, IPPR associate director, said compulsory voting was the only way to stop the "haemorrhaging of turnout".

He added: "We are comfortable with compulsion in other walks of life, such as jury duty or the requirement to educate our children. Surely our democracy is valuable enough to deserve a similar level of backing."

I'm puzzled as to how compelling people to do something that they obviously don't want to do will ensure a more representative government. Especially if those people aren't interested in politics. No doubt the logic is that this will force the electorate to take a more active interest in the political process. But I think they've rather put the cart before the horse.

And when one considers that two million people took to the streets of London alone to protest against the Iraq war, it can hardly be said that people's interest in politics is waning.

I think they have come up with a solution that ignores why people express apathy in the British political process.

Since Tony Blair came to power he has assiduously courted "the middle ground" in the firm belief that, much as "Guardian readers" like myself (yes, that is how today's Labour leader describes his traditional Labour supporters) moan about his right wing ways, come election day we will have nowhere else to go and will have to bite the bullet and vote for him.

Now, Cameron is playing for the same middle ground for the Tories, working on the same principle as Blair, that come election day the Norman Tebbit's of this world will have no other option than to vote Tory.

In this way both the major parties have become practically identical. It is almost impossible to listen to either of them talk and find any substantive area of difference.

And it is this which is turning off the voters.

Before the last election I tried an online poll in which you answered various questions and they then told you which party best represented your beliefs. I'm not kidding when I say I had to lie to it to get it to tell me to vote Labour.

That's how far Blair has taken the Labour Party from it's roots.

The answer is not compulsion, the answer lies in having political parties who's beliefs represent the beliefs of the electorate. Most people in the UK feel that politics does not concern them or their lives.

Compulsion will only add resentment to something that, at the moment, merely bores them.

Address their needs and watch how quickly people will return to the habit of voting. The problem here lies with the political parties, not with the electorate.

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