The move to make it compulsory would remind me of what Bush said after 9-11: “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”.

Actually George, it’s perfectly possible to despise one group of murderers exactly the same amount as you do another.

Likewise, when thinking about whether or not you’re going to vote, it’s OK to hold all candidates in an equal amount of contempt, and to ultimately decide not to bother.

And voting is not compulsory in the States — but in Chicago we always have a better than average turn out. (Of course, some of our voters aren’t actually alive… but that’s another story.)

But I’d be against compulsory voting — forcing someone to go in and vote when they’d probably cancel out my vote anyway.

And what would we get? Senator Britney? Governor Paris? *shudder*

At the risk of dragging things off topic…

You will remember that Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives were all set to form a government with the Lib Dems.

This “rainbow” agreement” was brought to an abrupt halt not by Plaid Cymru, as you suggest, but by a shock 9-9 tie in a Lib Dem NEC meeting which they had no constitutional recourse to a tie-break.

Technically, Plaid Cymru could have waited a few days for the Lib Dems to resolve the situation (which the LDs did).

However, the political reality was that the LDs were viweed as a split party after the 9-9 shambles- which explains Plaid Cymru’s ultimate decision to cast their lot in with Labour.

PASOUK and ND are the two parties that have run Greece for generations.. Those Generations have been run by successive members of the Papandreou and Karamalis clans, both parties known for a high degree of corruption.

Greece is unfortunately buried deep in a “pox on both their houses” politics where I’ve witnessed people solidly on the left voting for the party of the right out of disgust at the Papandreou clan. Further, their constitution guarantees extra seats to the winner, killing all chance of coalition governments, or hung parliaments… So it’s one of the bastards or the other.

Corrupt to the core – their is nothing good to be said for the worlds first democracy.

Labour is currently involved in a “conversation” about constititional issues and one subject brought up this lunchtime on Radio 4′s YouandYours programme was compulsory voting. The people who called in, including me, are very cynical about Labour’s intentions. They have not issued their election manifesto to publish the Review of Voting Systems in the UK and have reneged on another promise for a vote on the UK Constitution. So the conclusion was that people do not trust the government to deliver any reforms, only spin.

I am afraid that compulsory voting will only be adopted if it suits Labour’s electoral chances. My view is that they won’t because they won’t be able to manipulate the outcome.

If we do have compulsory voting then the ballot paper should include “None of the above” in order to give those people a voice who are disenfranchised. Again, what government will bring that in?

Just a couple of technical points –

Technically speaking, there is “overall control” in Wales. The formal “One Wales” coalition agreement between Labour and Plaid commands 2/3 support in the National Assembly.

Oddly enough (and without being disrespectful to the SNP’s phenomenal success this year) it’s Scotland that’s more akin to “no overall control” – with the SNP having to govern as a minority administration.

So there!

However, in a mature democracy, should we be telling people what to do? The government is considering votes at 16. But how can you enfranchise this group by giving them the vote but at the same time disenfranchise them by saying you can’t drink, drive, get a credit card or a mortgage?

As part of a “discussion on constitutional issues” Brown is considering various issues surrounding the constitution. However, he still refuses to publish the Review of Voting Systems in the UK. His government presided over devolution and gave the Scots and Welsh a choice on voting systems but now he doesn’t like the outcome – SNP in Scotland and no overall control in Wales.

Making voting compulsory is irrelevant until the above are resolved.