Who are the candidates and who's got your vote?

[prestbury]

From perusing these forums and listening to the various political debates and orations over the last few months I can see where the electorate have difficulty in knowing who to trust. Even the local candidates come out with many weasel words and economic truths.
Nationally we can be sure that there are only two parties who are vying to become the next government, but who will they sleep with to gain control.

Vote Labour and be sure of another country SNP having the last say.

Vote Liberal Democrat who will jump in bed with anyone to gain some power but currently favour the Conservatives.

Vote Conservative who will invite a rag tag of political opponents to join them, if required, to form a majority.

Vote UKIP who are likely (subject to gaining some MP's) to align with the Conservatives.

Vote Green who are not sure what they would do (except politically destroy a town like Brighton).


In our own constituency the options are a little clearer.

Vote Labour who would be pushed to win here, take votes away from the Liberal Democrats and hand it to Conservative.

Vote Liberal Democrat who will then be likely to prop up a Conservative goverment.

Vote Ukip, again who would be pushed to win here, taking votes away from all the other parties.

Vote Conservative and get Conservative.

I will admit that at the election in 2010 I voted Lib Dems for the sitting MP who had done some good work in the constituency but I am still fuming at him being instrumental in selling us down the river by being one of the senior negotiaters in propping up the Conservatives in a hung parliament along with the LD's reneging on their manifesto to gain power.

Having said all that my decision will probably not be complete until the pencil is poised above the ballot paper.

[simonesaffron]

To continue.....probably vote for them, but they may not get them.

I need to look at the numbers again and the likely permutations though time is running out.

[simonesaffron]

For me it is very hard to separate the candidates, I've seen each of them twice and they all have different individual qualities.

I heave therefore gone back to parties.

The Conservative party is carrying on with its austerity programme which I don't support and I just do not trust them with the NHS.

I've lived through successive Labour governments and every time they leave office, they leave behind a financial mess, which the ,Tories then take out on the poor. I might be prepared to give Labour one more chance but they have not got a glimmer of getting in, in HG so what would be the point of voting for them ?   

It is probably coming down to who would make the best coalition partner. A right wing coalition that seeks to be adversarial with Europe at every opportunity fills me with dread but a left wing coalition does the same. If I thought that the LibDems would get enough seats to be a coalition partner, then I 

 

[bat man]

Bit of humour or truth....


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[corium]

Condate, I for one am now better informed about Roman place names! Has to go and look it up after your last post.

[Condate]

It is rather surprising Condate, that you have lived in Hazel Grove Constituency  for five years and you can only count the Lib Dem supporters you've come across on one hand. I've lived here much longer than that and the place has always been crawling with them for as long as I can remember.

They obviously don't talk about politics in this part of the world as much as they do in my old home town (my username is a giveaway as to where that is). Also, I moved here when I got married and have perhaps had less time to discuss politics that I used to. What also suggests this is I've not come across many Conservative, or Labour supporters here either, which it why I talked about my old constituency. Futhermore, I lived in my old home town for over fifty years and got to know a lot more people than I do here and they were not many Lib Dems there. On an unrelated note, before moving here, I lived in three different constituencies, despite not moving home! 

[simonesaffron]

It is rather surprising Condate, that you have lived in Hazel Grove Constituency  for five years and you can only count the Lib Dem supporters you've come across on one hand. I've lived here much longer than that and the place has always been crawling with them for as long as I can remember. 

[simonesaffron]

It all depends Dave, where you seek your definition from but thanks for the research and the homespun sophistry.

Like most people voting in this election, I will make my own mind up and if it means that I vote for the; fairest, tallest, shortest simply because they are one of those, then there it is.   

[Dave]

I don't really consider myself to be a feminist.

Feminism: 'the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities'.

I sign up to that, and I'm amazed that you don't, Simone!  But then by this definition, anyone who votes for a candidate on the basis of their gender can't be a feminist, as s/he is denying equality of opportunity to a candidate of the other gender.   

[moorendman]

Tory Bloggers? Do you know any Simone? Read the interviews and left MeV know if you detect. Any bias.

[Condate]

And Condate is surely wrong to suggest that people vote for candidates who 'hold views far removed from their own'.

What I mean by this is that I have come across many people (not in the Hazel Grove constituency; I've only lived here for just under five years) who complain bitterly about the views of the Conservative candidate which they strongly oppose, but they plan to vote for them anyway and similarly, many people who complain bitterly about the views of the Labour candidate which they strongly oppose, but they plan to vote for them anyway. Or course, it could be argued that such people should join the appropriate party and have a say in who the candidate is, but that's not how candidates are chosen these days. Each of the main parties (and I can't talk about the Lib Dems, as I can count the number of Lib Dem supporters I ever come across on the fingers of half a hand), relies heavily on support from people who hate the current policies of the party. If people stopped voting for candidates from their favoured party if they don't support their views, we might get to a situation where MPs actually represented the views of their constituents.

[simonesaffron]

I don't really wish to make this a feminist issue, for one thing I don't really consider myself to be a feminist.

However, you would say what you've just said wouldn't you Dave. Your gender has got 450 representatives in Westminster whereas mine has got 148.   

In fact, it is not that long ago we had none and yours had all the seats, every single one of them.

[Dave]

Dave,

You can't tell people that they are ''wrong' to vote in a particular way for a particular reason. It is their vote (not yours) and they can vote for whosoever they wish and for the most obscure reason that they choose, if they do choose.

OK Simone, fair comment.  So let's say it's just pointless (rather than 'wrong') to vote for someone on the grounds of their gender - just as it would be pointless to vote for them because of the colour of their hair or whether they wear glasses.  A man is no more or less likely to be a good MP than a woman, obviously. 

As for this:

This is why we get stuck with the politicians we do. I wish people would remember that while all the candidates belong to political parties, that does not mean they represent those parties in the commons. They don't. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a Conservative MP, or a Labour MP, or a Lib Dem MP. They are all (or will be when they are elected) simply members of parliament. Yes, there is a serious problem with the disgraceful system of party whips (which people have been complaining about for centuries), but fundamentally, we are voting for a person, not a party and for me and for many people there are candidates of a political party I would vote for and others from the same party I wouldn't vote for if in a million years. That's why it's so important to hear what the individual candidates say. If people vote for a candidate simply because he or she belongs to a particular party, even though the candidate holds views far removed from ones own, it is no wonder we get the sorts of parliaments we do.

I do wish we could get rid of party names on the ballot paper. It would at least be a visible reminder to voters that they are not voting for a party. I also wish we had a few independent candidates too. If people voted only for candidates who held views they support, we would have a very different house of commons.

We should also remember that what happens elsewhere is not relevant to the election here. We are only concerned with who represents the constituency of Hazel Grove and nothing else.

I heard Brian May of Queen making a similar point on the radio yesterday, and my first thought was that he should stick to playing the guitar!   I understand the point, and there's a lot wrong with the whipping system in parliament, but the alternative would be chaos. And Condate is surely wrong to suggest that people vote for candidates who 'hold views far removed from their own'.  Sure, we might not agree with a candidate on absolutely everything, but broadly speaking, people will either:

a)  vote for a candidate whose views are closest to theirs, or
b)  vote for a candidate who is most likely to keep out another candidate whose views are indeed 'far removed from their own' (i.e. a tactical vote).

As Wnston Churchill famously said, 'democracy is the worst from of government, except for all the others'.   

[simonesaffron]

Moorendman,

No, not  'conspiracy theorist tendencies,' just suspicions about Tory Bloggers.

[thebigshed]

I have just been to the hustings at St Chad's in Romiley and each candidate spoke respectfully and honestly (I believe). As has been said already in this thread each would serve their constituents well but the party politics question will inform my eventual decision on who to give my vote.  There is no point in voting for the best person if this might bring in a government I don't want.