Voters in the Irish Republic recently voted in favour of same sex marriage, in what I'd guess most would have always viewed as a solidly Catholic culture & community.

Way back in 1974, here in the UK, there were two General Elections. It was during the period between them that I joined the Labour Party. That's over 40 years ago. These days I don't engage much with party matters. I do try & attend the Christmas Bash, which we quite enjoy.

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The voter turn out in 2015 was 66%, pretty high by UK standards (we are 74th in terms of voting!) That means 30m of us registered, did vote, so 15m didn't & 7m of "us" didn't even register. I actually find that quite shocking!

The Daily Telegraph tell us there's around 135,000 Conservative Party members, down almost 50% in 10 years. The House of Commons Library figures for Labour membership is 190,000 & 44,000 for the LibDems. The Guardian quotes 42,000 UKIP members, with the Greens at 44,000. (SNP quotes 65,000 members).

The percentage of people actually in party membership is less than 1%. Studies say it's quite an "old" thing to do for people in their 50s & 60s.

I joined a party to do with sharing values, principles & vision. Things I hear little mention of these days. My values, principles & vision haven't changed, may have needed to be reinterpreted, but I don't think they have altered.

But why did this piece begin speaking about the recent Irish plebiscite?

Because it appears The People didn't behave individually together as perhaps their perceived collective culture might have expected. But should that surprise anyone? I know people of different faiths who don't practice what they are preached in terms of contraception & divorce for example & who attend religious events purely to get their kids into a certain school.

We're told never discuss politics or religion. So, here, I've broken that rule, big style. But I raise the question of how our Leaders can lead with all this confusion.

Is that why membership of political parties is falling? Does it matter? Is only only 57% of us voting a bad thing? Do we get the politicians we deserve?