UK election facebook stupidity stuff (GAs ended)

In case you didn't know on Thursday big Dave Cam won the general election in the UK. He won with an overall majority which means he can do what he likes now. It is fair to say I found this somewhat depressing as I don't like the tories very much at all. But I didn't find the results especially surprising as it was up to the opposition parties to present a credible and electable alternative to the conservatives and I feel they very much failed miserably.

In any event life goes on. Unless we die in riots. Which could happen. I'm sadly old enough to just about remember the dubious joys of the Thatcher government and all the social unrest of the time and I can see another round of divisive austerity going the same way. But Thatcher at least had the sense to strengthen the police force before pissing everyone off while Cameron has significantly cut the police since they barely held the line in the 2012 riots. Great work Cam and I'm sure it will all work out well, but I am digressing from my original point...

On Friday, the day after the election, I started seeing a lot of people posting and sharing a great deal of material complaining about or just abusing our glorious leader. Which is fair enough, except a lot of this was being done by people who had said they weren't voting because there was no point, it didn't matter, it was too much effort, because everyone was the same, as a protest, etc. Or hadn't even registered to vote because you know screw the system or whatever.

I can't help but think of a few statistics that I saw. 36% of voters voted conservative. Voter turnout was 66%. So by my maths Dave Cam has absolute power with the support of only 23% of the people who could have voted. Which means the other 77% plus everyone who was too lazy to even register to vote could quite easily have prevented that from happening if they wanted. And if that was too hard then fair enough, but spamming my facebook wall with complaints after the fact is just going to make me tetchy.

That said I'm uncertain if the lone tory supporter that I noticed was even worse. 'Democracy has Spoken!!!' he proudly declared.

Having just worked out the maths I couldn't help myself but suggest that although the conservatives appeared to have won the election fair and square (apart from maybe all the bullshit and fearmongering) 'democracy has spoken' was possibly pushing it. Given that the conservatives were going to be running the country without effective opposition thanks to the support of only a small minority of the electorate arguably only for the benefit of a minority of the population. And that was a long stretch from a word derived from the Greek dēmokratía literally meaning 'rule of the people'.

'It is the system. You can't argue with the system.' was the answer I was given. I suggested that in a free society maybe I could and that it might even be beneficial for people to question the system from time to time. Which is when I found out that apparently I'm a terrorist and that I should go to Syria with the other terrorists.

I'm staying off facebook for a while. I think I'm going to stick to Steam and Lego Star Wars until things improve. If nothing else maybe Dave will make sure the trains run on time like all the best leaders.