Politicus.

From the 18th century onwards, people across the world have fought for universal suffrage: Emmeline Pankhurst, The Corsican Republic, and the Paris Commune. It was a long, and oft bloody battle, to get a sense of equality into the electorate. Women and men alike stood side by side to take back the power from the landed gentry and nobles: There was a mass outcry for equality and basic human rights. People died for the cause, people died for the right to vote. The Chartists promulgated the 'One man, one vote' campaign, and the suffragettes strove for women's rights; slowly but surely, the battle turned in the favour of the mass: "We are many, they are few". Suffrage was granted, slowly but surely, electoral reform throughout the late 1800's started giving a voice to those who before had been without a voice. The aristocracy of the 18th Century was gradually worn away at, and people started calling for their rights to be instated, it was a time of social and political upheaval. In short, it was the mass revolt of thousands of would-be voters denouncing the corrupt and inconsiderate tyranny of an aristocratic rule. Change came, at last, and universal suffrage (to the extent I wish to discuss) was established: Gender, race, ethnicity, age, and merit of idiosyncrasy became irrelevant. The right to vote was garnered on the principal of basic human rights. Obviously, there are still systems which do not grant these rights; there is still corruption, and a lack of suffrage - most especially for women - in the Eastern countries, but on the whole, the idea of suffrage has become an inherent right for anyone growing up within a civilised society.

So two hundred years of bloody battle, and where do we find ourselves? At a juncture of mass disenfranchisement; in the midst of the highest level of voter apathy seen since the foundations of the electoral rights were initiated. We're at an impasse of political stasis and decline: Wasted votes, and ignorance, drive forth political antipathy. Our electoral system still struggles under the weight of calls for democracy, and Plato's Republic is still a far off vision of reckless hedonistic thought. Electoral reform has failed to galvanize the stuttering electorate into force; trade union activity has declined, and people have become distanced from the system that is in place in order to better their lives. What happened? When did mainstream political parties adopt the same platforms as each other? When did a two-and-a-half party system become an amorphous blob; full of unintelligible rhetoric, and profligate manifestos? Why did voter apathy bring the recent nationwide turnout to such an stagnant figure?

Don't think I employ hyperbole: Turnout has been as low as 27% in some UK constituencies. It's almost unbelievable that in a time of such political change, that we find ourselves in such turmoil. So, what has happened, why, and how do we fix it?

To find out what has happened, I guess it's worth looking back a few years, to at least get some perspective of this issue. The issue of a Thatcherite Briton is always one that plays on the lips of the older generations: The poll tax, nationalisation, widespread mistrust of the political leaders, strikes; it was a time of disharmony and tension. Understandably, the Conservatives have been reeling from this ever since the vote of no confidence allowed John Major to step into the chair; but this is not a contributory factor in the disenfranchisement of those under 25. Recently, the plague initiated by Tony Blair has lead a lot of the younger generations to be disinterested with the political spheres. And now that Brown is seen as a blight on Britain's future, that's not going to change.

Evidently, we need to look further back to get a clearer picture of what has happened.

In short, the two mainstream political parties that we have nowadays were founded from The Tories (Conservatives) and The Whigs (Labour); they were two wholly disparate entities which sought for two completely different visions of Britain. Whilst the whigs, at the turn of the 18th Century, were firm supporters of the large aristocratic families, towards the mid to late 1700's, their ideologies tended towards increased suffrage, sovereignty of parliament over the monarchy, and the abolition of slavery. The Tories, conversely, supported the gentry, the CoE (Church of England), and the general rule of 'court-life'. So, as we can see: Two entirely separate and disparate parties, fighting for control of the UK parliamentary sovereignty. If you chart the ideological progression of the parties over the subsequent two centuries, what you see is a gradual - but noticeable - slide towards similarity. You arrive at the modern-day picture of Britain with only two real divisive issues left to battle over: Immigration, and the part Britain plays within Europe. There is not the political and social struggles that were present through the 18th and 19th Centuries to drive enfranchisement or voter interest; it is a Britain where the candidacy is fought on personalities, not policies.

So surely the issues cannot be the sole reason for the transmogrification of the two parties into one indecipherable mess of rhetoric? No, perhaps not; perhaps the role of the electoral system itself is to blame. Grossly oversimplified, our current system of electing leaders is based around the idea of First Past the Post (FPTP): It means that the more seats you win, the more chance you have of winning. It is not a proportionally representational system; it is one fought on seats, not number of votes. FPTP is the reason that George Bush won the 2001 American Presidential election. For instance, you might win the most amount of votes, but you may not win the majority; if there are several parties up for votes, you do not have to win the "popular vote" in order to win the seat. Parties form conglomerates in the hope of edging out the competition, and gaining the seat; thus you end up with a 'two-plus' party system (with third parties merely exacerbating the strength of the main two).

FPTP raises questions of democracy for several reasons: Is it fair to have a winner who fails to achieve the popular vote? Is it fair to only have two parties who have a chance of winning? The former is an irrefutable fact of the FPTP, the latter a bit more complex. Take the Liberal Democrats, for instance: A vote for the Lib Dems is so often seen as a 'wasted vote', because people think they will never get into power. Whilst this mentality remains - reinforced by FPTP - the Lib Dems can never hope to gain enough seats in Parliament to be able to influence Britain in any meaningful way. Third parties become indistinguishable from pressure groups, for all the effect they have. I hope I've not lost you here; basically, the system where there is only two parties to choose from leads to people not wanting to vote, because they are so similar. Basically. Unfortunately, electoral reform of the voting system will not happen under the current Labour government, simply because a more democratically representational system would further distance Labour from any hope of retaining the encumbrance. Shame.

So that's how we've got to where we are, and why. Voter apathy with tired party lines trotted out by vacuous individuals devoid of personality, and party lines which become so similar as to be indistinguishable.

What do we do? We educate. We enforce mandatory lessons in politics and political systems in senior schools. R.E. is obligatory in a secularised society, devoid of any real religious zeal, and yet politics - which affects each and every citizen of a country - is not given the same approval. People don't understand the voting system, they don't understand tactical voting; they cannot differentiate between the two parties; they don't fight for referenda or for reform; there is no care, simply. If we can get people to a point where they are genuinely engaging with the political system; where they are holding corrupt or inept governments truly accountable, perhaps we can start to see some change. At the moment, all we've got is apathy: Pankhurst would be spinning in her grave.