PEOPLE are starting to receive their voting cards for the forthcoming referendum.
Up and down the country hundreds of thousands have been posted through letter boxes reminding us to go out and have our say in a month’s time.
Up and down the country forms will be lost, covered in tea stain spirographs from casually placed mugs, stuffed under piles of unopened mail or discarded into the dustbin without a pause to contemplate whether or not to go to the polling booth.
The big fear among the ruling ranks is whether or not there will be a good turn out following the withdrawal of official yes and no campaigns.
Drumming up impartial publicity now falls into the hands of the authorities and public service broadcasts, which do not employ the platforms of The Sun, FHM, E4, MTV or Dave. The very demographic that are guaranteed to be reached are likely to have at the very least made a mental note of the date, and have in mind how they wish to vote already.
The rest of the population are likely to remain somewhat blissfully apathetic.
Even the 1997 Referendum that led to the Assembly being established only inspired a 50 per cent turn out and resulting in a yes by only a whisker.
It seems that people are just not inspired by politics. Not even at macro-regional level.
Have we become totally detached from politics, contradicting the very core of a democratic system? Do we feel powerless to act and in any case, feel our voices won’t be heard? Do we simply not care?
I have an idea about this. All the big laws, the legislation that packs a punch and really means something, has pretty much been made, and those untouched areas that cause such polarity of opinion are, as ever, taken out of the hands of the voting public, from prisoner’s votes to tuition fees, and of course, membership of the EU.
Whatever we believe, it seems that ultimately, we are simply not asked.
All that remains is a somewhat inert political class biding their time by contriving useless legislation and cogitating vacuous subjects that only serve to inundate daily life with a barrage of ineffectual, yet nonetheless meddlesome law making.
In my view, that is reason enough to turn out on March 3 and say “No”.
No to countless acts, directives, laws and amendments stifling our freedoms.; No to the vast sums of money spent on hosting the Assembly, paying staff, enacting and enforcing legislation, when it could be spent on the very services the government are entreated to protect; No to increasing the Assembly’s powers to make legislation without the scrutiny of a second chamber.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the “No” camp is being labelled as counterintuitive, deliberately obstructive fringe voters by the more vocal “Yes” camp. One side is definitely shouting louder than the other.
Perhaps it is because the vast majority of people have become disenfranchised with the system, and there is a largely silent sweeping majority of people disinclined from voting their freedoms away in exchange for more political powers in Cardiff Bay.
They must be cajoled, coerced, compelled and convinced by concerned Politicos that their apathy is dangerous to democracy, foolhardy or anarchic.
They must be subjected to feeling alone and illogical to not assent to granting the hierarchy greater sway.
They must be distracted from the boondoggling that every disconsolate abstainer is intuitively aware is visceral to today’s system of policy making. Well let me say it first, you are not a pariah, apostate or a turncoat.
You are the majority of nameless, voiceless voters who can make a difference by showing you want to put an end to bureaucracy and stifling legislature. You are, of course, permitted to vote no.
It is, I believe, not my position to implore you to vote either way, or to criticise, chastise or ridicule those that think differently to me. However I do feel I am in a position to at the very least advocate solidarity.
And on the subject of political hokum, Baroness Ashton, the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and British representative at the high table in Brussels, has come under fire yet again.
She failed to agree on a formal statement condemning attacks on religious minorities in the Islamic world by stating that it is not politically correct to use the word “Christian”. Just as an aside, she is also the world’s highest paid female politician with a salary that dwarfs even Hillary Clinton’s.