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I make no bones about the fact that I am disillusioned with politics. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way but I had a real dilemma in writing this post. Do I spread my discontent or just leave everyone to make up their own minds?

I overcame my apprehension because I don’t like lemmings. I believe we need an informed and enlightened electorate if we are really going to make a difference.

So I’ve decided to throw you all a challenge… can you allay my reservations and turn me into a conscientious voter? In other words can you give me a reason to vote?

We are expected to vote. In some quarters non voters are viewed in the same way as drink drivers. It is our right to vote and post Obama there is a real movement to get the disenfranchised and especially ethnic minorities to register and ‘make a difference.’

Operation Black Vote are pulling out the stops to get the Black community to register and now vote at the forth coming election. Apparently there are 113 seats that will be decided by the BME vote. But whilst my heart says yes, my head is just not convinced. Why? It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of the vote, its more to do with the fact that I do not believe that the political parties don’t offer me anything to vote for.

There is a lack of real choice. In fact I think this maybe more be more by design than we care to admit. You seriously cannot get a Rizla paper between them. The three main parties are so alike. So should I just vote on local issues? The problem with that is they promise to do everything we might want before the election and then apologise afterwards when they cannot find the money to do it.

I am tired and disillusioned by personality politics. I’ve just listened to Brown lie about giving the army everything that they asked for when I can clearly recall him saying, when he was Chancellor, that it was his job to decide what the country can afford. In a letter from 2003, written by Brown to Hoon and the then prime minister Tony Blair, he says he “must disallow” any “flexibility” in the MoD’s resources. In other words, you cannot get anymore money. It’s there in black and white and yet, he is allowed to remain in office and openly lie that he did not say no to any of their requests.

Then there’s Cameron, who says that he only found out about Lord Ashcroft’s non-dom status in the two months. Well, Labour knew about it and kept raising it as an issue years ago. And he wants me to believe that he never bothered to find out for himself?

And am I to believe that Clegg is going to have the political leverage to hold the other two parties to ransom in a hung parliament and bring about the political reform that we should all love to see?

Hmmm… and what are we in this wonderful democracy actually ‘allowed’ to vote for? Each party produces a political manifesto, a limited set of policies contained on a flyer, which is not worth the paper it is written on. Manifestos not legally binding but are mere promises which may or may not be honoured during their term in office.

Manifestos skilfully pander to our hopes for change and betterment by reflecting the results of market surveys and opinion polls to delude us into voting for one party over another but the reality is, that whichever party gets in, they will do what is in their best interests or that of the economy, not the people who voted them in.

These politicians play poli-tricks on us. They never answer a straight question with a straight answer and have reclassified lying as being economical with the truth or referring to it as spin.

Nevertheless I hear you say… what about those who died for my right to vote, surely I should just vote regardless because in other countries they would literally give their right arm to have a say in their political system? Who am I, to turn my back on what my forefathers fought and died for and take my vote for granted?

When it is put like that my heart always gains the ascendency and I start to feel terrible, but then when the emotional guilt trip is over, my head steps up and reminds me, that this political system is not, what they fought and died for.

The last time I checked I was not a fool. I was not someone who was going to prop up a lie or a system of government that offered the illusion of democracy when in reality the country is run by lobbyists, global companies and un-elected quangos, whose job it is to maintain the status quo, regardless of who we vote for.

I recently listened to a very inspiring speech by the Rev Al Sharpton and I must admit when I left, if there was a election the next day, I might have forced myself to put a cross in a ballot box because that’s what we’re supposed to do. But as the euphoria of the evening subsided I found myself able to answer everyone of his criticisms of those who ‘dared not to vote!’

What Rev Al Sharpton conveniently forgot to mention was that there were many Black people in the US who marched alongside Martin Luther King, lived through the civil rights movement, who actually fought for the right to vote but only registered and voted for the first time in the recent election, which Obama won. Why didn’t they vote before? Why did they sit on their hands during all of the previous political campaigns and waste their votes? Was it because they felt that despite having the right to vote… they actually had nothing or no one credible to vote for?

Sharpton talked about the angry Black man, who sat at home complaining but did not vote… well that could be me. I am angry because I hate being lied to and being treated like a fool. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” I’m not talking about MP’s who fiddle their expenses or who take us into illegal wars for oil or to destabilise the governments of countries that don’t fall into line. I’m not even talking about the lies we are told about climate change, immigration, state sponsored executions and torture… all of these things pale into insignificance when you actually understand how the electoral system in this country really works.

Here’s the real issue for me… (please make sure you are sitting down when you read this). Voting does not have the power to change anything. When we vote, we only ever change the players, the game remains the same.

I have a fantastic card trick. I make you choose a card at random, which I then shuffle and they place face down and you makes some choices. At the end you are left with one card, the card you chose in the beginning. It’s an amazing trick but because I know how it’s done, I know it’s a trick, you think you are in total control but you only ever make the choices, I want you to make.

So when I vote I am tacitly endorsing a sham democracy that is designed to placate me into thinking that I can change something really important. Voting alone does not, a democracy make. It all depends on which particular issues you are allowed to vote for. Obama’s campaign said; Yes you can but now he’s in office he popularity is melting faster than the ice cube in hell. Why? Because he does not really run things the lobbyists do.

Did you know that in London 40% of the seats in London have not changed hands in the last 40 years?

Why did all the party leaders send their deputies to the Black Britain Decides – not one of them turned up in person – during the closest election ever… when the BME community will decide over 100 seats…  do you see my point? We are not taken seriously because we are not serious. We play at politics and continue to endorse a system that discriminates against us. So why should they take us seriously – they don’t, we don’t, so why should I vote? I wouldn’t be voting for change i’d be signing up for more of the same.

Democracy is supposed to be ‘rule by the people’ but there are huge areas of government where the people have absolutely no say at all. Over the years we have seen foreign, monetary and defence policies driven by external forces. We have seen the influence by globalisation, driven by the G8 and G20 summits. We have seen the gap between the rich and poor get wider as money markets continue to be manipulated by the World Trade Commission, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations.

Most of the Western ‘democracies’ are actually ruled by a cabal of wealthy elites who have created a system in which they can manipulate national and international politics, the global economy and the mainstream media to serve their own greedy and insatiable ambitions. Let’s not close our eyes to the fact the George Bush could not even spell regime change, let alone orchestrate it on his own. Saddam Hussein was a threat to the West’s ability to manipulate the stock market. He refused to play ball and so had to be taken out.

Look at the lengths the government went to, to gain our support for a war that was based on a lie. The dodgy dossier, the replacing of any weapons inspectors who stated that Saddam had no WMD’s, the silencing of scientists who spoke out, ignoring the advice of civil servants and legal advisors and bypassing the normal systems of government, that would have provided much needed checks and balances.

Do you recall how we were skillfully denied a referendum on the Euro because every opinion poll showed that ‘we the people’ didn’t want it. But they ‘the rich and powerful’ do, so treaties were created to enable the UK and other countries that actually voted no, to still join and ratify a treaty, despite the will of the people. And we accept this. Not even the Conservatives who previously promised a referendum are going to go ahead with one, if they win the next election.

I’m left wondering whether the power of the vote has been eroded? Are we holding on to a nostalgic view of voting that no longer exists?

The government cannot even protect UK jobs, in a recession. They are powerless to prevent the sale of British institution like Cadbury’s to a foreign company, who are then free to relocate those jobs and factory abroad to cheaper countries creating higher unemployment. The same is true for Corus.

European farmers are paid subsidies to create food mountains whilst developing countries are denied a fair price for their produce.

The picture is not any different when we look at local issues. The people were against the congestion charge but Ken Livingstone famously said that even if the consultation showed that the people did not want it, it would be introduced anyway. Remember this was off the back of the introduction of over 1000 new traffic lights installed prior to the consultation. The traffic lights created the congestion and then we were taxed for it. Unbelievable!

Let me give you another less controversial example, when residents in Southampton were consulted about whether they wanted fluoride added to their water, 70% said no but they went ahead anyway (March 2009).

The latest one is the collection of our bins, which we already pay for in local council taxes. We even recycle in greater numbers than we have ever done before which was supposed to save money and now, we are being ‘told’ all our bins will be collected fortnightly. Why? We the people don’t want it. We don’t want bins outside our homes for two weeks to attract more rats and foxes, not to mention the smell. Currently less than half of councils collect bins fortnightly but guidance signalling the end of weekly bin collections has been sent to councils by the Audit Commission. Where is the democracy in that? Yet another example where we are dictated to regardless of what we the people want or who we vote for.

So, if I cannot even have a say about when my rubbish, which I pay for is collected, why do I think that my vote is anything other than rubbish, to be recycled in four years time, to be cast away again and again.

And I don’t buy the ‘its the best we’ve got so let’s work to change it from within’ crap. The system is designed to be manipulated from the outside so its a misnomer to think that you can change it from within. Once you are in it you become a pawn to be used by it, to maintain it. Let’s not forget or overlook the fact that we have some black MPs. However they have quickly become MPs who happen to be black. What’s the point of that? Where were they at the Black Britain Decides Event? Why did none of our Black MPs take the platform?

Those who consider abstaining from voting do not do so lightly. We desperately wish that we had a credible electoral system that was accountable to the electorate. Forget the personalities, the system is broken. This is not what our forefathers fought and died for. So please park that and deal with the issues at hand. We do not want to perpetuate a system in which we continue to be bamboozled by the rich and powerful into maintaining a political system that keeps the faceless and non-elected in power whilst we hover over which box to put our ‘X’ in, believing that we are somehow changing the world.

Sure not voting doesn’t change anything either but is that a reason to vote?

Two negatives don’t make a positive. So I’d like to hear from you. Should I vote? If so, who should I vote for and why?

So convince me, give me a reason to vote. Tell me and the millions of others who will not be voting in the soon to be announced General Election, why we should vote.