{"id":3179,"date":"2015-03-04T13:36:56","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T13:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=3179"},"modified":"2015-03-04T13:36:56","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T13:36:56","slug":"taboo-subject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=3179","title":{"rendered":"Taboo subject"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Walking into a room of Unite members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bus drivers working on the South East coast, I mention the upcoming general election. This raises a grunt, followed by a laugh, and then a nervous silence.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">Politics has become a taboo subject, many don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their place and certainly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel comfortable discussing it around colleagues. This is exactly why we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hit the road with Hope not HATE and the Mirror, not to ask for votes but to simply ask that our members &#8211; and the wider public are ready to cast <i>their vote <\/i>on May 7.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">Recent research shows that possibly as many as\u00c2\u00a0one in\u00c2\u00a0four people living in the Hastings and Rye constituency aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet registered to vote at the general election. In 2010 only 63.9 per cent\u00c2\u00a0of those on the register voted! Imagine the voice the people of Hastings could have if everyone voted.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">With that level of voter participation it comes as little surprise that people sped up a little or diverted their eyes anywhere, not towards you, when you asked them about voter registration in the street.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"margin: 1em 0cm;\"><span style=\"color: black; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;\">But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all doom and gloom.\u00c2\u00a0Young trainee bus driver Jay told me he was looking forward to voting for the first time in May. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had the chance before but not bothered as, he\u00c2\u00a0says,\u00c2\u00a0the general election is the only one that matters. Jay reckons it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for young people to stop ignoring politics as it does them no favours &#8211; I agree.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Walking into a room of Unite members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bus drivers working on the South East coast, I mention the upcoming general election. This raises a grunt, followed by a laugh, and then a nervous silence. &nbsp; Politics has become a taboo subject, many don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their place and certainly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel comfortable discussing it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[223],"wps_subtitle":"Many feel talking politics is not for them ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}