Posted on Mon 09 Dec 2019 at 16:05 by
Francesco Masala
Tired of bus prices being so damn high (and still rising?!)?
Annoyed that the local fish & chips shop had to close down?
Wondering why you’re 21 and almost £30.000 in debt?
Looks like you’re affected by politics, folks.
Politics is something that lays low in you for prolonged periods of time, without showing any symptoms. Then, some person in front of a black door tells you everything has to start again, and there you go, all of a sudden, you realise it’s been affecting you all along. All those symptoms that you completely ignored for the past whatever many years are so clearly related to it now. You realise that you’ve been indignant at your university for its practices: and all along, universities’ funds being cut by politics was the origin of it.
You realise that your favourite fish & chips shop has had to close down to make way to the umpteenth McDonalds in your city, driven out by gentrification and lack of support for local businesses.
In the flat where you live, the light switches don’t work properly, the boiler takes so long to properly heat up the shower water, there is mould on the ceiling, and the windows’ single glazing just doesn’t keep out the winter chill. The lack of accountability of landlords and chronic underfunding of local councils has led us here.
For some reason, we’re affected by politics every day, and yet we don’t seem to connect the dots until yet another election knocks on our door.
Every single thing we see, face, hear about, the very road we walk down is affected by politics. And given our age, it is likely to affect us for so much longer than most other people. At university, we live in a vibrant community with people from all walks of life, and politics has affected, affects, and will affect us in a wild variety of ways. We can’t afford to step back, lay down and ignore the symptoms, not at this time of the year. We get a choice this week, we can’t let it go to waste.
Students and young people are one of the demographics that historically has turned out to vote the least. There’s no point in delving into why this is, but we must understand that we have huge power and we can make our demands heard with our collective voice. Students represent around a fifth of the constituents in Bath. Our vote matters and we deserve to be listened to. Let’s reverse this trend and make sure that we have a say in the decisions that will affect our futures.
Make sure you vote on December 12th. That’s the only cure available when you realise politics is affecting you.