In a discussion yesterday, under attack for the votemeter post, I reminded my mate from whom I stole the idea that it was his votemeter I was promoting.

“Yes but not that way, with those other things in there.”

Now I would suggest that a person can’t win. More than that, I take his own idea again and say that, “We are here – we want to be there.”   OK, what practical steps can we take to get there?

Sackerson comments:

Instead of drawing arbitrary lines between voters and non-voters, it would be better to address the political and anti-historical agenda in schools, and the lamentable state of the Press and broadcast media (ignorantification at the tabloid end, sciolism at the broadsheet end).

Again, I’d suggest we’re going round in circles and not moving forward. He points out the lamentable state of education. The products of that education don’t think so – only we, of an earlier education system think so. [The older folk are the guardians of the society in many societies.]

Is he suggesting, in asking that the division between voters and non-voters be dropped, that the Posh and Becks youngster today should be deciding policy for the nation? That people not remotely interested in the affairs of the nation should have a say in it?

Yes, is the firm answer – democracy means the vote for everyone; that’s what we’re defending.   Really, I answer – but we’re not going to get that if twenty million Posh and Becks types are deciding on it.  Would he give the vote to his six year old?  Why not?

We are here now and we need to be there. That involves incremental steps and a steering committee at least getting this set up.

I’m not saying the Posh and Becks types won’t have the vote – I’m suggesting that they need to qualify for the vote, just as in all walks of life.  Would you give the vote to your pre-adolescent child? Well, the Posh and Becks type is a product of the infantilization of our society that so many of us are rabbiting on about, pointing to the nanny state and the woeful condition of education.

Do you see how we’re going around in circles and getting nowhere? We’re calling for “addressing” things but when a proposal addresses it, we don’t like it because it looks elitist.

No, it’s not elitist – it just says we need to be basically qualified to speak authoritatively.

Cherie says that she wouldn’t pass the test. How does she know? Lord T asks which questions would be asked and I say how can I know when they are to be decided in a democratic manner? I can suggest some questions, that’s all.

Questions

Rule N1 – no one is going to agree. As soon as any questions are in place, someone’s going to come along and say he/she disagrees. Taken to its logical conclusion, there’ll never be any questions.

This is the fate of Health Plans in the U.S. By the time they get through all the objections and filtering, the watering down, there is nothing left worth having and it still costs the earth.

So, though the formulators of questions need to heed opinion held by a fair few people, they must not lose sight of the goal. Just as the French have things which define them as French, they have a history and are proud of it, so we also have, despite Brown’s lot trying to change the demographics of the country to make it more susceptible to EU takeover, – we still have quite a good idea of our past.

We can start with our system of government and its path through the centuries, in simple form. I used to teach this to Year 6s and it covered the whole gamut from the Britons to Magna Carta. Now, if a Year 6 could understand and pass a test on it, a voter can or I’d suggest, if he/she can’t, then he shouldn’t be voting until he can.

History haters now come in and ask what the connection is between history and understanding today’s politics. A lot actually, just as Latin is a useful language to know for overall literacy in English.

However, let’s not dwell on that because we’re only going to fragment again. The point is not the relevance of history but that it is but one component of an overall test of competence – to eliminate the Posh and Becks factor.

Detractors of the test point to people “being excluded”? Who’s being excluded, for goodness sake? Aren’t you capable of reading the notes and swotting for this test? If not, what job do you currently hold down? Yes, you might say but the poor ASBO with his chav friends is excluded.

Yes. Yes he is. For the moment and there’s the rub.

Like a child, he is not capable at this point. He can become capable if he wishes to. If he really wants to have his vote, if he wants to get all democratic and say he wants his right to have a vote, fine – get on down to the council office where he signed up for his housing benefit, get the notes, get someone he knows in the area ejukated-like and swot up for the test.

I really can’t see the practical problems.

Back to the questions – obviously anything which a Year 6 would understand is the minimum level. Things on our literary tradition, the trial by jury system, the British traditions of fair play and an Englishman’s home is his castle, our heroes from Drake to the Gurkhas, the controversies where no hero is decided on, e.g. Churchill [hero to many, not to others], the constitutional Monarchy, some of the main facts in the constitutional state of the state, e.g. 1688, Magna Carta, without getting bogged down in calling it Magna Charta[er].

We can refer to the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the history of the Enlightenment in Britain.  Then we can let the latter lot go in and amend the adjectives and assumptions in the first and the former do the same with the latter, so that it is a statement of the conflict in society rather than an actual argument one way or the other.

It’s perfectly easy to go in and get a range of old 11+ exam texts and go from there.

And so what if a person fails? He hasn’t paid any money. He just goes away, swots up again and comes back, just as GCSE students can have another try but in this case, without the cost factor.

I really don’t see the objections holding water here and if they do, we just address them or work around them. The bottom line is that if you drive, you need to pass a test. If you use industrial machinery, you need to convince someone you can use it.

While the current overregulation would be rolled back, a test is still not a bad thing. I went for an Elfinsafetee test and got 20/20 without thinking. I just took a look at the notes and that was that.

Not only that but passing this test produces a pride in having done so, especially if it is years down the track and an accepted institution in society, the reward being the coveted votemeter. It’s a sense of achievement and the first test, for many, in being able to say one is educated and not an ignorant pleb. Clever Trevor really is clever.

How to move from here today to a situation where we can implement this voting system is in Part 4.

Filed under: Life issues & people, Politics & economics