Plan Bee

It will be interesting to learn next week what proportion of the UK vote is now postal. Because postal voting boosts the turnout, people seem happy to ignore the risk of in-family coercion, or the fact that a vote may not be private. Thirty years ago it was assumed that postal voting was for the infirm or for people serving in the military. Now it is presented as just a handy alternative to the polling booth — the drive-thru lane of democratic consensus.

But should there be a cost to voting, even if it’s only a short contemplative walk to the polling booth? Do you want everyone to vote? Why encourage people who are happily indifferent to express an opinion, and so cancel out the opinions of others who care a great deal? Apathy is a noble social virtue: ‘I care so little here that I will not impose an opinion on the rest of you merely for the sake of doing so.’