DON’T FORGET – TODAY IS YOUR LAST DAY TO REGISTER!
Just a reminder that today (Monday 20th April) is the last day you can register to vote in the general election on May 7th.
Graduate Fog is encouraging all our readers to register to vote (and to actually vote)! We know many of you feel disillusioned by politics, and that there is no party that speaks to you (or for you). But we believe that will only change when more young people vote. Politicians need to fear you – and at the moment, they don’t. In 2010, only 51% of 18-24s voted. Just imagine if 75%, 80% or 90% had voted. Would those in power have been more attentive to people your age in the last five years, if they knew there would be consequences in 2015?
We know that many of Graduate Fog’s readers are politically engaged – your comments and tweets show that you are impressively well-informed about what’s happening in the news, and how this impacts you and your generation. But until politicians believe that you will reward (or punish) them at the ballot box, they will continue to view young people as a second-class group who they don’t really need to worry about keeping happy (unlike the over-65s, who vote in their zillions).
So, if you haven’t registered yet, just click this link and answer a few easy questions. It takes three minutes. On 7th May, the fact that you have turned up will be documented, showing politicians that what you will be watching what they do in the next five years. And you’ll hold them to account when it’s time to vote again. And, yes – they should be scared of you.
Tanya de Grunwald
Founder, Graduate Fog
I’m more politically engaged than I ever expected back in Dec – I’m a Green local election candidate this election 🙂
So finally doing something to do with my degree. Getting paid to do so is another matter though.
My Tory MP has a 13,500 majority so the reality is that my vote will not make a difference. That said if more young people voted maybe we would not have 9k fees and a generation priced out of the property market while pensioner benefits are protected?
@MWA
I know it may seem like your vote doesn’t make a difference to the result of who gets in in your area, but I think you’re right in wondering what the UK would look like if more young people DID vote. Tuition fees and the dire state of the housing market are perfect examples.
Also yesterday’s safe seat can one day become a marginal, as the Labour shadow foreign secretary (at risk of losing to a 20-year old acc to Lord Ashcroft’s poll) and Lib Dem Chief Secretary of the Treasury have found facing SNP challenges.
And what happens to Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam may show what the young and jilted graduates can achieved.
I dont think that We need develop any confusion over false intergenerational warfare…after all, employers can proverbially treat the over 60’s as bitches, and recruit them as “Apprentices” just as they can with the 16-18 year age range.
Until the legislation is tightened up, employers can redesignate any job as an Apprenticeship, and provided that they can recruit someone sufficiently gullible, will do so..if for no other reason than they only have to pay, not simply the National Minimum Wage, but a lesser figure.
They’re all the bloody same.
Despite them tripling tuition fees I am curious to see what will happen under a conservative government, perhaps there will be light at the end of the tunnel when the deficit is cleared in 3 years. Or is that wishful thinking? They made my father redundant so it is difficult to take any sort of liking to them.
You know, Farage didn’t go to university but his father was a stockbroker. I guess a lot of it comes down to connections.