With the upcoming election being looked at from every angle in the news media and starting to crop up in conversations, I am hearing more and more about the feeling that the electorate are in the majority disengaged from politics. This supposition got me thinking about my own position and I'm not sure if the question is actually relevant.
How about asking the question 'what do you believe a change in government would change in your life financially?' What might the reaction be to that?
I bet you'd hear all sorts of off the cuff remarks about the cost of whichever party they wanted to talk about but if you followed that up with 'what increase in cost to you would there need to be before you felt compelled to vote to object?' you'd get them thinking harder.
Similar questions focussed on quality of life issues like the Health Service, employment, care & support and immigration could be raised too.
Perhaps the reason people aren't considered to be engaged is because the value of any prospective change isn't sufficiently extreme to warrant them doing something about it. You could argue that the various political parties are pretty much offering various shades of grey policies.
Consider the Scottish independence vote where everyone says the electorate were engaged and remain so. The choices there are so far away from the middle ground that there is more motivation on both sides of the debate.
Have we got to the situation where because everyone now occupies the middle ground the choices are less stark and motivating?
If you accept that theory, then are people actually engaged but see little benefit in making a choice?
