So... have people made up their mind? I'm inclined to go for the Lib Dems. Vince Cable for Chancellor! Labour will almost certainly lose. It'll either be a Conservative win outright or a hung parliament which is when I imagine the Lib Dems will agree to a coalition on the condition that Cable is made Chancellor.
I think I'll be voting for the Lib Dems this year. My MP, Steve McCabe, is basically a labour party puppet. He's my representative, he works for me, which is odd, since his voting habits suggest that he is in fact acting as Gordon Brown's representative. If he can explain to me why he has voted with Gordon Brown 99% of the time and Tony Blair 98.3% of the time, I might consider giving him a second chance...or at least not reducing any of his campaign volunteers to tears when they knock on my door. I read an interesting article on election arithmetic the other day - shows that the Tories dont have this one wrapped up yet. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8606979.stm And yay for another Cable4Chancellor supporter.
not voting cos of age but my mums voting lib dem as our current MP (mike hankcock) is really good. Generally I think the ones in my politics class who can vote are going LD as well one as he's as far left as is humanly possible and 2 are tactical voting.
Luckily my MP, Jeremy Corbyn, is certainly not afraid to defy the government (he's done so 210 times / 25% of the time). He will keep his seat for certain and honestly I don't have any issues with that.
Thought this might interest some people http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mps/ check out MP voting habits its been pretty useful for me in finding out one of the tories in a local constituency is a royal douche
Ok, that dude's a legend. That's the voting record of a real Labour MP. I doubt it is coincidental that he entered parliament before New Labour came to be.
I'll tell you this much... Despite initial influences to the contrary, I will NOT be voting Tory. As we say in Wales, yuchi fi!
I'll be voting Labour as I have no protest option. Also, the LDs are only a few hundred votes from winning the seat here. Otherwise, if it was safer and/or I had the opportunity, it'd be spoilt ballot or socialist alternative
When someone creates the Numpty party, they will get my vote. Till then Liberal or Green (hey I am a Celtic fan - not hiding after Ross county thrashing.)
After the shameful expensesgate i will be voteing for the candidate who did not have his/hers fingers in the pie, just to try and throw out the one that did! Bah! Labour indeed, the mans never worked a day in his life
I'll have to vote Labour. The Liberal Democrats just aren't strong enough as a party yet. The Conservatives are still wanna be American ultra capitalists. In spite of all the recent bad publicity over expenses claims and the like. The conservatives think it's a great idea to flash their cash and swoon around the country in helicopters in a clearly desperate bid to grab power. I'd never vote for anybody that desperate or that out of touch with reality. Until I start seeing some credible policies being put forward I'd rather stick with the devil I know.
The expenses scandal is going to have a significant impact - the Tory Parliamentary candidate in my constituency has a tag line on all of his election materials stating that in 10 years as a councillor he has never claimed a penny in expenses. He'll probably win and if he wasn't a tory, I'd probably vote for him too.
I will not be voting because representative democracy is a system I am not comfortable supporting. I will not be spoiling my vote because even though choosing not to vote is a form of non-participatory participation, spoiling your vote implies you support the system but not the parties. I do not support the parties, true, but I also do not support the system; I do think democracy can work, but I think it works better in places like Switzerland. I'm expecting a tirade of people will want to respond with something like, "that just makes you lazy" or "people will just assume you're lazy". But, that argument simply doesn't hold up because every time I am asked who I'll be voting for and I receive such derision, I go out of my way to defend my position, which often takes more time than it would to go and vote; thus the lazy thing to do would be to agree for the sake of avoiding hassle and confrontation. I've also spent quite a bit of time, and continue to spend time, on keeping up-to-date with political happenings.
Are you suggesting that the only system you are willing to interact with is a direct democracy? Cos that aint gonna happen anytime soon. Would you be happier with a representative democracy operating a proportional representation electoral system?
Well that's your choice. However if you choose to be silent then your opinions will never be heard by those in a position to carry them forward. Personally I'd like to see a proportional representation system put in place. It works well in Scotland. The minority SNP government has just enough power to get the job done. But not so much they can ram policy through parliament. They're forced to explain and justify their polices and actions. While the opposition are in a real position to hold the SNP to account if anything goes wrong or even looks like it may go wrong. I'd like to see that level of accountability at UK national level. I don't think the "first past the post" system can deliver that any longer. I'd also like to see the UK parliament adopt the Scottish Parliaments rules on expenses. Everything is published and out in the open.
The great fear regarding proportional representation is that it will inevitably produce extremist MPs. But it will also produce a lot more lib dem MPs and effectively remove the Labour/Conservative duopoly. If you are happy with all those terms then proportional representation is very appealing, but it is obviously not going to be appealing to Labour/Conservative MPs who would have to vote for it.
I think with the Internet and the use of blogs and the like to transmit ideas across a readily-accessible medium, that's not as true as it used to be.
