Explain it to me again: a confused voter yesterdayDo people in this country actually understand how our electoral system works? I assumed they did, but I'm not so sure now. Following Gordon Brown's inexplicable decision to humiliate a pensioner this afternoon, lot's have people have vented their spleens on their computrons.
As soon as his 'bigot' comment had spread across the internets like marmalade over a piece of hot toast, voters everywhere emailed in to all and sundry to declare categorically that they will not be voting for Gordon Brown now, many of them declaring they would be abandoning Brown in favour of Clegg, yet this is of course impossible.
You cannot vote for Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg directly. Not unless you live in one of their constituencies as I unfortunately do. If you live in one of the other 647 constituencies you'll be voting for one of their colleagues. This is not a Presidential democracy. We pretend it is, the campaign is now run as if it is, but it isn't.
We elect parties. They publish their manifestos and an army of nerds are then posted to each of the 650 constituencies to argue the points of these manifestos to Gillian Duffy and other racists of the nation and we then elect them to Parliament to represent us for as long as possible before the intoxicating potency of power corrupts them irreversibly and they begin to serve only their own means.
Voting for any of the party leaders because you like them is not only a sorry reflection on what appeals to you personally, it's also misguided and stupid. So let's hear no more of this 'I'm voting for [insert part leader name here]' business.
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