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Politics

12th Apr 2018

Please, register to vote

The deadline is April 17

Oli Dugmore

The deadline is April 17

You can register to vote in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette – stress levels depending.

And it’s vitally important.

Upcoming local elections will decide the political makeup of councils across the country. On Thursday May 3 more than 4,000 seats will be contested, as well as six mayoralties.

If you pay council tax, this is a rare chance to decide how that money is spent. Bin collections, potholes and the like. On a national scale, local elections are often a weathervane for national sentiment. Listen to the people we interviewed below, nearly all of them cite country-wide issues as motivating their vote.

UKIP massacred the results last time, in 2014. Combined with their success in the following European elections, David Cameron felt sufficiently pressured to include a referendum on EU membership in the Conservative party manifesto.

We all know how that turned out.

You might be already be registered. But if you’re not – do it.