Voters show disdain for party-political system

Stroud Times, 9 May 2024

Stroud’s Greens’ understandable euphoria over our local election results (Greens are on the up, says SDC leader, Stroud Times, May 6) cannot hide the disdain that many if not most voters feel about the Punch-and-Judy Show that is our party-political system.

First, turnout in the elections was very low – surprisingly so, given how much the voters clearly want change. Nationwide, the number of elected Independent councillors was up by a remarkable 69 per cent, from 135 to 228. In addition, in the recent Rochdale by-election, the local independent won more votes than Labour and Conservative candidates combined!

And in last week’s Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner election, the Independent candidate Matthew Randolph gathered 10 per cent of the vote in the Stroud Voting Area, with virtually no campaigning resources and in the face of a viciously disreputable online smear campaign against him.

With two high-profile Independent MPs in Parliament who both attract great popular support – Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Bridgen – a genuinely new kind of politics is now possible, with ever-more independent, free-thinking voices displacing the clown show that is the conventional party politics. For many of us, that day can’t come soon enough.

Richard House

Stroud

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