Practically Political In Every Way (1/4) By Jo Allison

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (3/4).

A few years ago politics was dull, boring, and for men aged over 40 in grey suits with expanding waistlines and receding hairlines. Now suddenly it's cool. Politics is everywhere, it has saturated our mass culture, and almost everyone thinks they have a political position on something (or other). It's a disturbing fact, or perhaps a reflection on our society's celebrity-obsessed tendencies and intellectual decline that more 18-to 24-year olds voted for Big Brother than they did in our last general election, (and there was even a politician in the programme!).

Possible reasons could be politics old-fashioned, staid and boring stigma, or even our lack of knowledge about the subject. The fact is however that everyone talks about politics. Everyone has an outlandish, overheated debate about a certain political issue (tuition fees, immigration laws, smoking bans, to spark off just a few) every now and again. We just don't make the move to actually place a vote. And girls, we are even worse than the guys. Laziness perhaps?

The '1824 Collective' - a group of young artists and creatives in London encouraging people to vote - say that, "our strength is as a group", and the only way our new radical political ideas will be heard is if everyone nips to their local voting place, and tick that little square box. With the new ideas for text-voting, all you literally have to do is lift a finger, "the idea is to make voting less alienating - to make it more like what people do in their everyday life, more like shopping, more like banking, more like talking to your friends', Stephen Coleman, Electoral Reform Society.

Perhaps our reluctance to vote may not be down to our worries about alienation, and more due to the lack of credible candidates who actually deserve the ultimate political P.M. power. The fact that young people are not voting seems totally unfounded when you firstly look at the rising statistics of people studying politics, secondly consider the rise of powerful women in parliament, and thirdly the saturation of political matters in our culture.

Figures published by the Political Studies Association showed that the number of people applying to study politics is up by 12%, and Jack Arthen the Executive director, comments, "the much predicted 'death of politics' remains broadly healthy" and the number of students studying politics would suggest a growing interest in the field. We also, as women need to embrace a political intelligence. A record number of women are serving in parliaments around the world, but this still only accounts for 16% of all lawmakers.

"Women account for roughly half of the worlds population" said Anders Johnssons the Inter-Parliamentary Union secretary general, "but they remain dramatically under-represented in national parliaments" this is not because women are staying at home, boiling bunnies, or only interested in cooking and sewing, women are taking on major managerial roles in top companies, so why not politics? The worst area of Britain represented in parliament by women is in the east of England, and the highest representation is in London.

Continued...... Next Page (2/4)

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