The very real prospect that the Welsh Assembly elections will see less than 40% of the electorate bothering to vote is worrying for the validity of Welsh Democracy.
So much so that Labour's deputy minister for culture, tourism and sport has said. that compulsory voting should be considered to boost turnout at Welsh Assembly elections, Labour's deputy minister for culture, tourism and sport has said.
On Sunday, he told BBC Radio Wales he was "personally in favour" of compulsory voting.
His party - which has previously rejected the idea - declined to comment.
The Welsh Conservatives, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and Welsh Liberal Democrats said they were all against the introduction of compulsory voting.
Mr Skates, who is standing for re-election as an AM in Clwyd South, told theSunday Supplement programme he was "disappointed" by the turnout in the constituency during the last assembly election - about 40%.
"It's always of concern when turnout reduces. I'm personally in favour of compulsory voting and always have been,"
."I think it's important to examine all possibilities to improve turnout using digital technology, but also considering compulsory voting."Welsh Conservatives leader Andrew RT Davies has warned turnout for the 5 May vote could be the lowest so far.ever,
However Mr Davies said compulsory voting would allow politicians to "abdicate their own responsibility for increasing public engagement with politics".
He added:
"We need to make politics more engaging, interesting and representative - not hold a gun to people's heads and force them to vote."
A Welsh Lib Dems spokesman said the party
"believes people should be able to keep their right not to vote".
UKIP also poured cold water on the suggestion, with MP Douglas Carswell saying:
"Government should not penalise voter disengagement.
"Instead"Government should not penalise voter disengagemend we should have politicians who engage the public and policies worth voting for".None of those who support or oppose seem to address part of the problem in that with a lack of a large Welsh Media most of the information the Welsh Electorate get is comes largely from the English Media.
Even in the two major fields of devolution the NHS and Education people can be almost forgiven for thinking that stories only affecting England will also affect them.
Indeed switch on the BBC, ITV and pick up a Newspaper in Wales and you will see that the Welsh Electorate are probably more informed about the NHS in England than here in Wales.
Apart from teh Daily Post covering North Wales only the Wasting Mule really covers Welsh News and I am not a fan of this Unionist Rag,
Scotland at least has a media that covers issues there extensively cover Political issues and even the London Media provide "Scottish Issues" true they are over 90% Unioinist ,
and although our experience of the "Welsh" Mirror which briefly entertained us in the wake of Labour’s failure to gain a majority in the first Assembly elections of 1999?and Plaid sen to be on the ride .and It was was nothing as Jacofthenorth pointed out..
but a platform for Paul Starling to spew his hatred for all things Welsh, dressed up of course as ‘combatting the evils of nationalism’.
But as Oscar Wilde said
"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about"Maybe increase powes instead of Devo Dipynbach that we have now will increase the profile of the Welsh Assembly which will probably become a Parliament (In name at least) before the next round of elections.
But if we are to be engaged in Welsh Politics and vote accordingly then instead of having to trawl the Internet for news we get our information in a more diredt (even old fashioned) manner.
Update 2:22 PM
This Morning's coverage by the BBC Breakfast program completely failed to address the issue of coverage of the Assembly and Welsh Politics . It was disappointing that even Professor Laura McAllister didn't raise the issue.
Of course the Beeb doesn't want to be tols its part of the problem.
5 comments:
There was a daily welsh news site - Daily Wales - but it was destroyed by hackers last July. Daily Wales published over 1000 original articles in the 16 months that it was running and had thousands of readers. In fact one of the last articles published had over 20,000 unique visitors.
Unfortunately its success provoked jealousy and discomfort among various people and it was destroyed, along with its archives.
Sorry to be so off-topic, Glyn but I have just read this on the Cneifiwr Blog. Can this be true?
"In 1997 the Welsh Tories went down all hands on deck. William Hague, that prototypical Tory Boy, shut down the Young Conservatives.
But it is claimed that there was one small corner of Cymru fach where the blue flame flickered defiantly against the gathering gloom before finally being extinguished. And of all places, dear reader, that was in Ammanford where, according to former school friends, Lee Waters enthusiastically embraced the Conservative and Unionist cause in a town reeling from the effects of Thatcherism."
Lets be generous and put it down to the rashness of youth.
I miss Daily Wales and we could do with more like it.
Laura McAlister didn’t raise the issue of a Welsh media because she doesn’t believe it’s a problem, she said so at the beginning of the Carwyn/Farage debate when they were setting the scene back in January, check out the video.
Yes we need a welsh media but instead of talking about it, do what the volunteers behind Daily Wales did and set something up yourself, until
Plaid Cymru do that they stand no chance of overturning Labour’s dominance. Because for all the talk about a Plaid surge after today’s poll its empty rhetoric as Plaid are invisible in large parts of South Wales Plaid where the most votes are up for grabs.
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