Please, register to vote

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. https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/984432378725707776 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. https://youtu.be/uVf12YBUKxU 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.