Despite my spellchecker’s determined attempts to turn “general election” into “giant erection” (I knew that writing that advertorial for penis pumps when I was skint would come back and bite me in the ass sooner or later) I have decided to dedicate this blog post to my musings on the general election, and all related bullshit associated with it, after which I promise I will STFU for at least the next five years. Probably.
Goths at polling stations
So I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to slap you down if you did nothing wrong, but I will say this: if you didn’t vote, shame on you! #dogsatpollingstations was a trending hashtag on Twitter on the day of the election itself, and despite my attempts to get #gothsatpollingstations trending too, I failed miserably. Interestingly, when I searched for images of Goths at polling stations for this piece, I returned a lot of images of nuns, and armed militia, not in the same images and not in the UK. I assume.
Tactical voting
So as we all know, the Tories pulled it off again this time, although how they managed this I will never know. I suspect that it came down in large part due to the fact that the rich folk are statistically a lot more likely to vote than the disenfranchised and poor, who are too busy just trying to survive day to day. Lots of boroughs, including mine, saw a reasonable amount of tactical voting to keep the Kippers and in some cases, the Tories out, and we largely succeeded on the former but failed miserably on the latter.
Is there such a thing as the Goth vote?
Politicians and pundits love to divide the population into demographics; we can pretty much all summon up an image when we consider terms such as “Daily Mail reader,” “Middle England,” or “Mondeo Man,” innit. So this has got me wondering if there is actually such a thing as the Goth vote.
The Blogging Goth has taken on this topic in more detail, here, and we’re in agreement in a lot of things.
Obviously just like any other subculture of people, Goths are varied and diverse in all things, including, or perhaps especially, when it comes to freedom of expression and political leanings. But I do also think that Goths as a whole are more left-leaning than right, and I strongly suspect (although I will never know for sure) that this is likely to have been reflected in the voting preferences of the Goth community as a whole.
My vote of choice would go to Green, but as I am located in what was a marginal Tory seat, I battled my conscience for some days before deciding to vote tactically for Labour. It didn’t work; the Tories took my constituency anyway. But if I had to state my allegiance to any one political party, Green would be it.
So I’d be interested in hearing from other Goths about their voting preferences or thoughts on the Goth vote as a whole; do you agree with me that most Goths tend to be Lefties, or do you have a different opinion? Tell me in the comments.
