'Who do we vote for now?' meeting

'Who do we vote for now?' was a meeting held on Staurday in Splott, organised by the Cardiff Social Forum. This intrepid 'international observer' observed the following interesting things...

The atmosphere was informal with everyone sitting around in a circle, about 25 people made up of a few representatives from Left groups such as the Greens and various socialists as well as a number of people with no particular party allegiance. It started with a 15 minute introductory talk that covered some of the dominant institutions in Britain that are not democratically elected (the Justice system, House of Lords, army, big businesses etc) and how the electorate can influence politics other than once every 4 or 5 years. After the introduction the floor was open for comments.

The discussion centred around common themes such as the political influence of consumerism, the (debated) importance of single-issue and pressure groups, power of the labour force through industrial action, the divisions amongst the small parties of the left and how they could perhaps move towards a workable inclusive umbrella 'Workers Party' despite many failed attempts, trade union representation and influence in party politics, the advantages and disadvantages of tactical voting, the challenging and difficult electoral process, negative campaigning, spoiling ballot papers and electoral reform.

Much of the discussion was motivated from a "I would (or used to) vote Labour but don't feel I can because of... Iraq / big businesses / tuition fees / etc". There was some discussion of Cardiff Central as a marginal constituency and the challenges that presented.

Someone brought this up at the meeting that the name bore a resemblance to the book "So Now Who Do We Vote For?" - the website for which you can find to the right in the links, along with lots of other sites that concern many of the issues raised here.

Apologies for not attributing any of these ideas to people. If you were there and would like to comment please do!