In 2011 a lush green pasture of possibility lay before us. Alongside local elections we were given the opportunity to change the way that our lawmakers were elected, ensuring that once and for all a well supported but otherwise net-unpopular MP could no longer "represent" us in our constituency. A positive result would have given more weight and momentum to the second part of the revolutionary change to our politics that would ensure no small voice would be left unheard, no doubt allowing Labour to jump properly on the bandwagon instead of stalking it; the change from our Lords as an unelected body to one that is elected in proportion to our political views.
Fast forward past the unsuccesful result, one that in my opinion actually did more harm than if we had never had the referendum in the first place, to the modern day where one Russell Brand is touting a democratic and constrained revolution of our interaction with the state. I don't disagree with him in general terms, but then I also voted in 2011 to say "Yes" to a new voting system.
There are those out there championing Brand right now, probably not as the instigator of these ideas...he says himself that is too false and lofty an accolade for him to claim...but as a figure that is focusing the issue of disenfranchisement in the UK political system. I'm glad, we need people to be actively thinking about how the state and the people form their contract, and how they continue their interaction; but at the same time I'm frustrated. Where were all these voices in 2011?
