Vote for Policies, Not Personalities

While Spiderman's Uncle Ben lies dying on the ground, he does indeed utter that 'with great power comes great responsibility'. The students in our constituency form a quarter of the electorate. We do have the power to uproot a notorious Lib Dem safe seat. So let's take this power and vote responsibly, for a party that will protect our communities, and not benefit a small few.

So who's it going to be? Polling day looms as we chortle down the road towards a hung parliament, the second in UK history.

Most are not overcome with a sense of euphoria upon seeing either Ed or David. But have we forgotten the most important thing? Is politics about personalities? Or is it about parties, values and policies? Representation?

Whilst Ed Miliband is ridiculed with pictures of his face photoshopped onto actors bodies, David Cameron comes over ever more as the preened and plucked public school boy, gloriously tanned after a weekend in his parents' hotel in Barbados.

Admittedly, again, I am not enamoured of Ed Miliband. But I am certainly not enamoured of David Cameron. In fact, I deeply concerned about the prospect of a further Tory administration. And although I am clearly not a fan of his, I am even less of a fan of what he represents, what he has done and what he could do. Not only as a person who holds certain values, who has a certain personality, but as a person who leads the Tory party.

Seemingly the choice is between these two people for government. But the choice is truly between Labour policies or Tory ones. To put it very simply, Labour's policies of helping the worst off before the best, or the Tory's helping the best off first and just hoping that it will trickle down to the worst. The Prime Minister certainly is the most powerful, but he is moreover an executive for a party.

David Cameron recently declared Russell Brand a 'joke', and whilst I would love to brandish him with the same label for his shiny egghead and deliciously RP accent, his party certainly is not one. His party is in fact a threat to not only our economy, but to most ordinary people in the country.

In this administration, we've seen cuts galore: losses of 5,000 nurses whilst 13,000 millionaires get tax cuts worth an average of £100,000. Britain's richest billionaires earning double what they did pre-recession, juxtaposed with a 163% increase in the number of food banks, bedroom tax on the disabled. And not to mention our NHS at stake, as the Tories agree to further privatisation, with a recent £780 Million privatisation deal.

The IMF is warning that the Tory economic plan is not working, and that growth is slowing. Whitehall's annual spending prediction of a £7bn surplus will in fact be a £7bn deficit. And whilst many declare the deficit to be the result of overspending from Labour, this has proven not to be true, it was the result of the financial crisis. In fact Thatcher's government was running at a deficit when Labour took over in 1997, and Labour nearly halved it by 2008.

I don't think it takes many of these policies for me to decide that this party does not represent my interests, or even the interests of most people in the country. They have taken the power away from ordinary people, and given it to the super rich and big businesses. And it hasn't worked.

We have a very valuable vote in Bristol West. According to the Lord Ashcroft Poll taken in April, Labour are ahead with 38%, with the Green Party coming in second place with 25%. With so many students undecided in Bristol, it is highly possible that the student vote could win it for Green or Labour.

A Green or Labour seat is inherently a huge step in the right direction. Another Green voice in house of commons would go a long way, and while although strictly both parties are very different, they share a lot of the same values.

I'm certainly of the opinion that, metaphorically speaking, school is never over. Life is one big popularity contest after another, and this is certainly boiling down to just that.

The nerdy, well-rehearsed Ed versus the predestined-for-Prime-ministerial David Cameron is unlikely to win first prize in the sixth form inter-schools debating championship. But it's not just a battle of who can out-debate the other. Who seems more like a winner. We have disregarded manifestos in the process of this election, and forgotten that though this person will be the highest-powered executive in the country, that they are the representative of a party that will hopefully reflect our preferences, and not our abilities to tolerate personalities.

Of course, any American high school drama will teach you to turn your nose up at the geeky group in school; they're different, a bit weird. But if you or I have learned anything from American films it's that appearances can be deceiving. Notorious geek Clark Kent is Superman, Peter Parker is Spiderman. And though I'm not heralding Ed Miliband as Britain's Geeky saviour, he's the closest thing we've got in this election.

And while Spiderman's Uncle Ben lies dying on the ground, he does indeed utter that 'with great power comes great responsibility'. The students in our constituency form a quarter of the electorate. We do have the power to uproot a notorious Lib Dem safe seat. So let's take this power and vote responsibly, for a party that will protect our communities, and not benefit a small few.

Close

What's Hot