According to Gordon Brown, the dramatically decreased turnout is merely part of a trend, common to all Western democracies. Therefore, it is apparently nothing to become overly concerned about if it is happening everywhere else as well. It could be argued that in the previous election, the vote was so much higher, as people wanted to ensure the annihilation of the Tories. There is something in this and yet, to explain away a dismal turnout of under six of every ten voters as merely pat of a trend, is wrong. Evidence to the contrary of Brown's view was resoundingly given by the Italians in last month's general election in which the right winger Silvio Berlusconi swept to power, on the back of one of the highest turnouts in recent Italian electoral history.
Passion is the key theme.
Throughout the arduous UK election campaign, very few people's passions were aroused. The politicians quite spectacularly failed to connect on any level with the UK public. Only in a few limited instances did we see evidence of electoral passion. Kidderminster was one and, more concerningly, Oldham East and West were two others, where the fascist BNP polled almost 10,000 votes as a result of the recent racial tension and violence in the area. This is something which a friend suggested to me last night as a possible solution.