With a General Election fast approaching and political disengagement reaching remarkably high levels in the 2015 election, it is more important than ever that we engage the electorate by making the system as understandable and simple as possible. What we need is 'Simple Politics'. Politicians, the media and specialists talk about terms such as manifestos, select committees and coalitions as if they are common knowledge, but who accounts for the potential voters that lack an understanding of these terms? Our political system is complicated and requires a level of understanding, in addition the complex way the media presents our system makes it even more confusing. This results in a system that disenfranchises many of those who are not politically educated. The way we approach politics needs to be done in a more user-friendly manner, what we need is organisations and media outlets to strip away all the nonsense and present politics to us in a nice and simple manner.
Educating the electorate about the basic premises of the parties, the way votes are counted and the laws being passed through parliament allows for votes to carry more meaning. People voting in an uneducated manner leads to havoc and allows politicians to fill the electorate with false and unrealistic claims, this often-skewing results. Even more worrying is the number of people who refrain from voting altogether because they either don't know how to vote, don't know enough about the value of their vote or don't know enough about who to vote for. We both need and want simple and impartial information about the current political system given to the electorate in an easy and casual manner.
This is what Tatton Spiller of Simple Politics is aiming to do, this being an organisation that simplifies the world of UK politics, making the realm more accessible and easily understandable to help the public to gain a greater understanding of our system. Tatton gave up his full-time job as a school teacher in 2014 to dedicate his working life to engaging the electorate by explaining our political system in a user-friendly way over an immensely popular social media platform and website. Simple Politics updates their website, Facebook and Twitter pages daily with articles, videos and infographics explaining in an easy to understand manner what is going on both nationally and globally in politics whilst also providing followers with a background knowledge of the system. Simple Politics now boasts well over 100,000 Facebook likes and Twitter followers in addition to holding events around the country where people can socially meet and discuss our political system. This new approach to politics is one that needs to be appreciated nationally. We should be celebrating and aiding attempts to make our political system and the running of our nation as easy to follow as possible.
We need politics to be made informative yet interesting, with information given to us in a way that doesn't seem like an inconvenience, just as pioneering organisations such as Simple Politics are doing. Voting in a democratic election is a right and should not be a chore. Understanding our electoral system should not be limited to those who have studied the subject of politics in an educational setting.
http://www.simplepolitics.co.uk
@easypoliticsUK