The eye-watering expense of nuclear power | Jonathon Porritt | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The coalition wants us to depend more and more on nuclear power, but quite simply, it is too expensive to be able to deliver...
Views about our real wealth - the natural and social world, the source of our resources and the basis of our lives - and how it can and should be sustained for generations.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Democracy dead?
Bristol has said yes to an Elected Mayor -
just - 53% Yes, 47% No, with the majority a mere 5152 votes, see here. Just one person in ten voting at worst and one in three
voting at best is a very worrying statistic however (see here). Everyone involved in any
way in politics and outside it should be thinking hard about what can be done
to change things and get people enthused about and involved in the decisions
that affect their lives and those of others.
I’d like to see whoever gets elected as the first Mayor of Bristol commit themselves to consulting the people directly on a lot more issues. The technology now exists to make this easy and cheap to do eg via laptop or mobile...
If the numbers voting stay low or decrease further perhaps we should make voting compulsory? I'd be happy to see this, provided ballot papers had a box with 'none of the above' where voters could put their cross. As it is people are entitled not to vote and that's our democracy - though problems of legitimacy must arise as the numbers voting fall.
I’d like to see whoever gets elected as the first Mayor of Bristol commit themselves to consulting the people directly on a lot more issues. The technology now exists to make this easy and cheap to do eg via laptop or mobile...
If the numbers voting stay low or decrease further perhaps we should make voting compulsory? I'd be happy to see this, provided ballot papers had a box with 'none of the above' where voters could put their cross. As it is people are entitled not to vote and that's our democracy - though problems of legitimacy must arise as the numbers voting fall.
If 'none of the above' was an option we'd have to decide what would happen if that option won the election though!
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