I really enjoy trying to understand and paying attention to politics – even though it is perhaps normal or fashionable to express no interest or have no view. But for me politics does matters, democracy matters and having a view and interpretation matters.

When you have a political discussion with someone or listen to the views of others in the news it’s exceptionally rare to agree or not find disagreements or points to have further discussion upon and maybe the increased amount of disagreements and diversity of opinion is what some people love about politics and on the other hand the disagreements and diversity of opinions is what puts some people of politics!

I have so far in my life voted in 7 general elections have supported 2 political parties so far and might end up supporting a third party in the next general election. Considering how interested I am in politics and democracy I feel my actual input into the political and democratic system is very small.  

When I was 18 I was a member of the Liberal Democrats a smaller party in the UK that you could have summed up being a left leaning party that believes in personal liberty for individual and advocates a change to the voting system of the UK so as to see proportional representation and more people have their views represented in the house of commons and also believes in the funding of political institutions for the benefit of all. One of the things that put me off them is when they went into power with the Conservative party which resulted in from my perspective a considerable amount of damage to the UK, where as others can argue through majority rule the British people got what they asked and voted for with Brexit when we left the European Union and introduced Conservative policies to cuts in taxes and damage public services due to lack of vision, investment and resourcing.

I have never been a member of the Labour party but I have voted for them in a general election and been served by a local Labour MP called Ben Bradshaw he was culture minister in the last labour government well over 14 years ago and is now stepping down and making way for a new local MP at the next general election. So most elections in which I have voted for have been for the Labour candidates and this election I will likely give my vote to the green party candidate in Exeter. I have regularly voted for local city councillors that are members of the green party and fortuntly they were elected to stand in my local city council. I have been a paid up member of the green party now and respect and believe in the principles and points of view of the green party. So on the election I will be choosing to vote with my principles and vote green or vote to beat the conservative and vote Labour.

I am more of an anti-Conservative party voter than I am a pro one particular party voter, I am a member of the green party because I believe they are a progressive party with practical solutions on how to  invest in and protect our environment and have policies on the local, national and international level that reflect this. But mostly I am an anti-conservative voter, if the greens seek to protect the environment then the conservative party seek to damage the environment, society and people within my own community so as to benefit from that damage financially themselves and such policies and actions I find repulsive.

A conservative will often boast about what freedoms they give to you while they profit considerably at your expense when governing you. It is argued that we live in a capitalist society and it is the only way to live. But I do not think it is that simple I would argue we are consumers not capitalists. We produce goods and services to be consumed and that way of existence can be managed and governed to ensure that the system is safe for the environment and the citizens that live within in e.g. safe water to drink and safe places to work and live. A capitalist mere profit is king society does not care whether the water is safe it only cares whether it is profitable or whether your work or live is safe only whether it is profitable to the economy.  We should aspire to work towards a consumer led society not capitalistic profit at the price of everything else society it is damaging road to destruction of this planet and must be voted against and spoken out against at every opportunity.