Will you be voting today? (From The Argus)

Will you be voting today?

8:00am Thursday 4th June 2009

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Elections will take place today involving every adult in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex and West Sussex. The outcomes will have an impact on every resident's life but analysts have predicted a new wave of political apathy prompted by the MPs expenses scandal will keep voters away. ANDY CHILES explains why you should cast the doubts aside and vote today.

We are in an unprecedented era of British politics. Mistrust of politicians has been a national, and indeed global, preoccupation for generations but has rarely known anything like this.

The spring of 2009 will go down in history as the time when the British Government, and the public faith in it, was lost.

This era of duck islands, moat cleaners and top-of-the-range televisions has some analysts predicting a total collapse of the political party system. That remains unlikely but at the very least it has had a real impact in the opinion polls. Popularity for the three main parties has waned so dramatically it has reached a point where even celebrities like David Van Day realistically rate their chances of election.

As a consequence we arrive at today's East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council and European Parliament elections with a complicated tangle of possibilities.

Incumbents have found their reputations tarnished merely by belonging to one of the main parties and hopefuls have discovered they are armed with stronger campaigning weapons than they may ever have expected.

The threat of the widespread use of protest votes looms large and the mid-size parties – noteably UKIP and the Greens look set to profit. Worryingly, the prospect of the BNP registering more votes than ever seems imminent.

What remains to be seen however, is what will happen to voter turnout.

County council elections have traditionally failed to excite voters and the European polls have been worse still.

Some predictions are that the huge public disenchantment with politicians at present will see even fewer bothering to visit the polling stations.

That would be a sad situation. More importantly it would not do anyone any favours.

There remain very good reasons for going to the polls today, in spite of any reservations.

FINANCE First and foremost, there are billions of reasons to vote today. The billions of pounds which will be spent by the authorities governed by the people you will elect.

Prospective voters who stay away from the polls leave themselves with no right to complain when that money, part of which will be from their own taxes, is not spent how they would like.

The current system of government may not be perfect but it is not imminently about to change and in the meantime it is undisputedly better to have your say than not.

The European Parliament has the final say over how £114 billion is spent each year, more than £11 billion of which is contributed by the UK.

Those funds have a huge impact on our society both in the ways they are spent at home and the overall shape they give to the European economy.

Regardless of whether people believe the UK should be in the European Union, they have a vested interest in how that money should be used and have something to gain from choosing who is there to make those decisions.

Electing MEPs has been taken lightly in the past because of the distant nature of the European Parliament but the expenses scandal shows how foolish that approach is. The MEPs who represent the South East will all be claiming a salary of more than £60,000 and expenses which can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. They should not be allowed to do that without having the genuine backing of voters.

The councillors who will be elected to East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council in today's polls will also have control of vasts amounts of cash and there will be no question over whether it will be spent locally.

East Sussex has an annual budget of more than £700 million while West Sussex has more than £900 million.

They are vast sums of money, contributed through taxes. Every resident should have their say in how they are spent.

DIRECTION Through those huge budgets the councils and European Parliament will bear influence on every aspect of life in Sussex.

The county councillors will be responsible for deciding which transport programmes to invest in – whether they should pursue road, rail, bus or cycle routes. They will decide which schools to improve, rebuild or give extra staff to.

They will decide how to deal with the millions of tonnes of waste produced in the county and how and where to provide services for vulnerable people.

MEPs will set European laws and have power to influence consumer rights, environmental concerns, health and transport.

People need to think carefully about who they want in control of those decisions and whether they are happy to sit back and let others decide for them.

While the events of the past few weeks may make voting for anyone seem unappealing, it remains vital to perform our "democratic duty". Otherwise we cannot complain about what happens.

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