Mulling over politics

Today was spent immersing myself in a lot of political material. I'd suddenly felt the urge to get back into looking at ideals from my youth when I first started thinking outside the system when I got into punk and other alternative and subversive music.

It saddens me that political apathy has set in big style to this country. Between 1945 and 1997 the turnout to vote for UK general elections was a minimum of 71.4%. In 2001 it dropped to 59.4% and since then it has risen slightly but not by much: 2005 (61.4%), 2010 (65.1%) and 2015 (66.1%). This means that 1 in 3 people don't/won't vote. Not good!

It is clear that our current system doesn't really work all that well and certainly doesn't represent the people it claims to support. From my perspective there are two things that we could/should look at:

1. bring in true Proportional Representation. This is but a pipe dream as there are far too many people with vested interests in the current system to want to relinquish their chance for power. I have no issue with minority parties getting seats as it would be the true will of the people
2. Make voting compulsory. Controversial perhaps but given the poor turn out that we have these days it would at least get people having to think about politics. There should be a "None Of The Above" option available if this was brought in to at least allow people to show their disapproval.

Ideally of course people would actually want to be involved and make the effort voluntarily but clearly this is not happening. A combination of 1 and 2 would certainly shake things up although I'd obviously like to see to see 1 happen with everyone actually caring enough to make 2 unnecessary.