The social contract between the State and its people is broken. For thirty five years our government have chased the power of the coin over the wellbeing of its people. The people who govern are morally bankrupt and enough is enough. We are ruled by a minority of business interests – as if business should be preferred over the welfare of an individual or the world we inhabit.

There is enough wealth in this country for all its people. We have been seduced into putting the acquisition of property ahead of a quality of life. Corporate interests trump the rights and interests of the people. We are told that to counter this would make us uncompetitive, that it would arrest foreign investment in the same breath that we are told immigrants are causing net losses to the public purse.

Communities have been fragmented by the dissolution of industry. Because free trade means it is better ‘value’ to buy salad leaves from Peru than support your local farmer. Where we prefer Amazon because it is cheaper and more convenient to have stuff delivered than walk to the shop whilst the billions we spend is syphoned with minimal tax into some foreign enclave solely to make the rich richer. To reuse an old phrase we have come to appreciate the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

And whilst the purse strings of government – local and national – are being continually cut funds are still found for war and to bail out the banks. We are repeatedly told the problem is elsewhere – whether it is the idolatry of the poor or the benefit tourists of the EU – without any reference to the data that proves contrary. Whilst a succession of governments refuse to take responsibility for their actions, heckling over a gilded mace in a building that has resisted change for centuries, its very architecture reinforcing the two-party rule that our country has experienced since political independence from the Crown. Our politicians are encouraged to support their ‘meagre’ salaries with outside interests that fundamentally compromise their ability to make unbiased decisions for the nation and their constituents. And the latest insult, a government and political parties that through fear of alienating the populist media have taken to blame outsiders, failing to acknowledge that our great cultural diversity is due to millennia of permeable borders and not through seeing the English Channel as a barrier to movement.

Our current government – appointed by just 24% of the electorate – has executed brutal cuts without any public mandate, in the name of balancing books caused by a generation of poor economic policy. Healthcare and education is being quantified on the basis of return of investment. What price can we put on these? In what logical world should profit or postcode govern our rights to an education and affordable healthcare for all.

This isn’t Labour or Conservative’s fault. This is due to a centralist doctrine shaped by Big Business and the Media over and above the mandate of society. We’re all in this together. Our governments should work for us and they are not. It is time for our political system to be overhauled.

So how do we solve this problem? Too many people have too much to lose through a revolution. We are shackled by the handcuffs of Student Loans and Interest-only mortgages. But next year gives us an opportunity to make a statement that we want – need – a different kind of politics in Britain. We have a system of democracy and a General Election gives us an opportunity to have a voice. Not voting is not a solution. Dissatisfaction with the options on offer should not dissuade us from participating and having a voice. The first-past-the-post system is horrifically outdated. But we have an option to make a statement without siding with one or other side of the same coin.

Come May next year we can spoil our ballots. This will not be a protest for or against any political party. It will not stop the favourite candidate maintaining their seat of power. But it will show that we are no longer happy to accept the way things are.

First and foremost register to vote. It is abysmal that only 65% of eligible voters turned out at the last election. If there was a new party of No Voters that would have been enough to have a clear majority over the other Parties. This number should not be underestimated.

So next May how are you going to vote? Are you going to vote for what you believe in? Are you going to vote tactically – voting against what you don’t believe in? Or are you going to vote for your unhappiness with the Status Quo?

Spoil your ballot. Vive la Evolution!

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