Who the heck to vote for?

It is hard to judge which of the two main parties is the most undesirable. The Lib-Dems talked me out of voting for them yesterday at their conference, and I think the record is well established of my opinion of the green party.
So what does that leave?
Obviously, as yet, I don't have a list of candidates (not in any of the possible constituencies), but I'm staring to give it some thought.

Sooner you than me, I have never been more glad to be disenfranchised.

Just out of curiosity Hairyloon.... what put you off the Lib Dems?

Wood Troll wrote:Just out of curiosity Hairyloon.... what put you off the Lib Dems?

That they are entering the election with the message that they have no hope of winning.
Granted they do have no hope of winning, but it is a bit defeatist to have it as an election slogan.
Even mine is better than that: "Don't vote for me, I don't want to do it."

But they could end up as the middle of a hung parliament, which may please them

Me I just want people who will tell the truth & not keep trying to "protect" me from the truth, in other words treat me like the reasonably intelligent person I am.

polgara wrote:But they could end up as the middle of a hung parliament, which may please them

Probably the best thing any of us can expect.
OTOH, have you heard how many hoops the Lib-Dems have set themselves to jump through in that event?

Hairy, I don't think its their own hoops. If people voted for parties based on their policies instead of who they might or might not support in a hung parliament this media circus would not happen.

If it does come to a hung parliament they will look to having their four key policies implemented. They can not say who they would support before the results are declared because it will put off people who do not want that party from voting for them. Instead they are saying "these are our policies... if there is a hung parliament we will look to supporting the party with the biggest mandate, but only if they support our key policies." I think this would be more democratic than a party getting under fifty percent of the vote yet having a huge majority.

Wood Troll wrote:Hairy, I don't think its their own hoops. If people voted for parties based on their policies instead of who they might or might not support in a hung parliament this media circus would not happen.

It wasn't so much hoops, just quite a drawn out process to decide who they'd support.

I really have no idea who to vote for this year - seems to be a case of picking the best of a bad lot

Trouble is the expenses scandal has exposed and highlighted in that garish pink that most of them are only in it for what they can get out of it for their own personal gain. (gosh he's a bit "graghic"!)

I guess that were I still a UK voter, I would vote tactically to stop a Tory govt forming. NO matter how shiny shiny Dave is, I still can't vote Tory, especially one who glosses over his allying the party in Europe with far right parties. Added to that the Cashcroft scandal wherein "Lord" Ashcroft has bought himself a Party like you would buy a Banana Republic and the so-called Tory Madrassa where Tory parliamentary candidates have undergone training by a rightwing group whose leadership has described the NHS as "the biggest waste of money in the UK", claimed global warming is "a scam" and suggested that the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified.

So in my mind, they are still the Nasty Party.

Can you tell that I'm a bit of a lefty?

It's interesting. I was wondering if any bothered with ideology anymore. Since Thatcher then Blair/Thatcher contination it all seems to be based on "whats in in for ME?"

So as long as the Torys throw out the sugar cubes to the masses they will be able to do what every they want.

Badger wrote:

Can you tell that I'm a bit of a lefty?

My father was born in Jarrow in the 1920s, so I suppose that has affected my political views....there don't seem to be any major parties who could truly be described as 'socialist' any more though

Badger wrote:I guess that were I still a UK voter, I would vote tactically to stop a Tory govt forming.

Is that a Tory government, or a "New Tory" government?
I don't think I want either.

Wood Troll wrote: I think this would be more democratic than a party getting under fifty percent of the vote yet having a huge majority.

But that is always possible whenever elections for representatives are decided locally. A consequence of having local representation.

Imagine 100 districts of equal size (population). In 75 % of them party A beats party B 52 % to 48 %. In 25 % of them party B beats party A 60 % to 40 %. Party A would control 75 % of the seats in the parliament but would have received just 49 % of the overall vote compared to 51 % for party B.

Yes I agree with you on that one Mike. However what makes it even worse in the UK is that the there is not a simple duopoly of Dem/Rep as in the USA. In the UK at the moment it is more like 2.5 parties with the big two always getting a huge majority without ever getting anywhere near half the votes. This is equivalent to disenfranchising a sizable proportion of the population.

Wood Troll wrote:Yes I agree with you on that one Mike. However what makes it even worse in the UK is that the there is not a simple duopoly of Dem/Rep as in the USA. In the UK at the moment it is more like 2.5 parties with the big two always getting a huge majority without ever getting anywhere near half the votes. This is equivalent to disenfranchising a sizable proportion of the population.

Well .... the situation is more different than that. We don't really have "national parties" and on all levels the only control a party can exert over candidates is by providing or withholding support. In other words, here you do not require "party permission"/vetting to compete for being that party's candidate on the ballot. In some of our jurisdictions you don't even have to be a member of a party to have a say about who that party's candidate will be. Hell, technically you don't even have to be on the ballot to run and even win. "Write in" votes allowed -- in our smaller New England towns not that unusual to have no "official" candidates for some slot. In the next over town in the next election nobody chose to bother collecting enough petitions signatures to get on the ballot for any position. They'll simply stand up in town meeting and say "I'm interested in that post". Why? The town is spread out, no place where people gather (nowhere to shop in that town, not even a gas station), so no convenient place to gather signatures and doing it door to door is a lot of work.

In other words, we might appear to have just two major parties, but what those stand for not the same in different places. Depending on "where" you can have Republican office holders to the left of the average Democrat office holder or Democrats to the right of the average Republican office holder. In addition there are "party factions" still in existence from battles a hundred years ago when our major parties did not stand for the same things (had different coalitions of interests supporting them).

So you can even get a "topsy turvy" election in one jurisdiction. A decade or so ago here in Massachusetts we elected Bill Weld governor. Republican, but out of the old "Progressives"* wing of the party that lost the fight for the soul of that party 100 years ago and at the same time the Dems put up somebody out of their conservative faction. So we had an election between a Republican to the left and a Democrat to the right!

It's a very different sort of system.

* From the days before the Democrats were thought of as the party of labor, etc. Look up people like Bob LaFollet (the person who actually thought up "The New Deal") or Fiorello LaGuardia (who when his own party refused to give him the spot on the ballot would run/win on the Socialist line!). Teddy Roosevelt you presumably already know about. Bill Weld married to a TR grandaughter. The Progressives were/are anti big business and pro environment and liberal on all social issues.

How did Bill Weld get onto the ballot? Well Massachusetts is an "open primary" state where you don't have to be a member of a party to vote in that party's "primary" election (decides who the candidates will be). When the state Democratic Party chose to back the rather conservative Silber and there wasn't a serious attempt by a more liberal Democrat to contest that most on the left side chose to vote in the Republican primary (in the primary election you can ask for any party's ballot).

Well in the UK the parties tend to be a bit more homogenous than in the USA. But if you don't mind Mike, I think this thread should not wander off into USA party politics.

So......
Anyone got any more thoughts on who has been nasty & who has been nice in UK politics? (Sorry Terry Pratchet)

To be fair Wood troll, i don't think it was wandering off into US Party Politics.

Who's nasty in UK politics. Hmm, let me think...

Wilhelm Von Rhomboid wrote:Who's nasty in UK politics. Hmm, let me think...

There is no shortage of people to not vote for.

Maybe more to the point? Who are you allowed to vote for? Are you restricted to names already on the ballot? (so must be one of the parties offically running).

While it may be difficult (where voting "machines" used) and even where paper ballots a write in vote must be "just so" to be valid but we are allowed to vote for anybody we please and they are supposed to count that as a valid vote and legally a "write in" candidate can win the election -- and in our smaller towns not that rare an event for a victorious write in campaign.

Are people talking about not having a good candidate to vote for who also has a chance of winning or not having a good candidate to vote for at all? Not the same thing. You should have a right to vote for a candidate of your choice but you don't have a right that this person also be a viable candidate with a real chance to win.

Sorry Billy,
It won't let me watch it here in France [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
But I thought everyone might like this 'funding' sketch.... [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
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Mike in the UK only the names of candidates that appear on the ballot paper are elegible to be voted for.
Candidates do not have to belong to a political party. A candidate only has to be eligible to stand for the said election, have the signatures of 20 (or more) nominees (from the electoral role of the seat being contested) and pay a deposit of 500 pounds (which is lost if the candidate gets less than 5% of the votes cast).
The election is of the candidate personally, not the party he/she stood for. If an MP decides to leave the party they stood for and join another they do not need to stand down (Ignor the usual calls for them to stand down and face the electorate, the voters chose that individual and that individual's judgement).

I think candidates only need ten people to nominate them, but I could be wrong.
Aside from that, pretty much anyone can stand.

I think you are getting confused with local elections, they require 10.... parliamentary are 20.