General election who do you vote for?

[The-Doctor]

Asked this a while back with the general election looming I ask again.

If there was a general election tomorrow who would you vote for?

 

[MorkandMindy]

Asked this a while back with the general election looming I ask again.

If there was a general election tomorrow who would you vote for?

God only knows

 

[Genersis]

Green.

Decided to do something crazy and volunteer some of my time to campaign for them also.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Green, I forgot about them, yes, they would be the best choice certainly in the long run.

Over the shorter term the only thing keeping Britain afloat is that houses in the SE are a form of international safe haven for storing wealth so they are like an export that never leaves the country. And whoever is in Downing St. when the bubble pops will be in big trouble.

Over the longer term the people are the key assets so making some pretty obvious changes to education to make it more like it is in Norway, and helping reduce the class divide are both big investments in the near future.

 

[Jonathan Jarvis]

Same as last time -- I'm not voting.

 

[High Fidelity]

Green.

Tempted to vote Cons because they're seemingly the favourites and the best chance we have at making UKIP a bad memory.

 

[MorkandMindy]

oops I missed something(s) and Inkfingers spotted it,

The basic idea of a green party must be to value the future at least as much as the present, so if as is often the case, present day luxuries will lead to future misery then they aren't worth it.

In a word 'sustainability'.

But the Green Party of England and Wales states that if some other countries 'eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die' and trash their own country, then if, and actually Britain is not doing as badly as many countries, if England and Wales are then in a better environmental state than some other countries, that we will welcome the populations that have trashed their own countries.

So basically the Green Party will reward or eliminate the effects of bad environmental practices and give out what we have left, thereby penalising anyone with good environmental practices. It isn't even a question of sharing, what is sustainable for 50 million people is no longer sustainable for ten times that number, North Atlantic fishing is a case in point.

Completely destroying the benefits of looking after our environment.


So it's back to - there are no good parties so -

God only knows.

 

[King Mob]

God only knows

No choice but to vote Labour, well up here in the darkest recesses of Scotland anyway.

God help us if we get a Tory majority!!!

 

[Ophiolite]

No choice but to vote Labour, well up here in the darkest recesses of Scotland anyway.

This may be true in the darkest recesses, however in the enlightened portions of the nation the Scottish Nationalists have retained the socialist principles the Labour party used to espouse.

 

[Genersis]

Just thought I'd share some resources for those undecided.

The following buttons link to the corresponding party's summary of what they stand for(or the best approximation I could find):

[URL="http://www.partyof.wales/our-vision/"] [/URL] ​

http://www.ukip.org/policies_for_people
Obviously, for more specific official stances on issues, you would need to look around their sites thoroughly.


As a party's official position on an issue can vary from their actions in parliament, these sites are useful for checking MP voting records:
All MPs - TheyWorkForYou
The Public Whip —
To get a good approximation of a party's general voting record, one should check the record of an MP from the party that has almost no rebellions and a good attendance record.(For example, Caroline Lucas for the Greens, Simon Wright for the Liberal Democrats, and Phil Wilson for Labour)


The following sites use various methods to try and help you decide which parties are a good fit for your political stances.
I've listed them in order of form least to most time consuming:
Who should you vote for? | UK 2015 General Election Quiz (England)(Scotland Version available from drop down menu)
http://election2015.votematch.org/
https://uk.isidewith.com/
https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

 

[Inkfingers]

Asked this a while back with the general election looming I ask again.

If there was a general election tomorrow who would you vote for?

I like the way that UKIP is anti-EU, for stonger controls on immigration and is more a party of small rather than big business.

I can't stand the way they are pro-nuclear energy and pro-freetrade though.

Meanwhile I like the way that Greens are pro organic farming and anti-nuclear energy.

But I cannot stand the way that they are pro-immigration and the EU (or indeed anti fishing and shooting).

Meanwhile the unholy trinity of Lib, Lab and Con (who are all basically the same social liberal, pro-eu, pro-big government, pouring money into the hands of developers, industrialise and urbanise the countyside, party with different colours) are not something I can find anything of real value in.

I want a party that is:
* anti mass immigration
* anti-EU
* anti military adventurism
* anti-freetrade
* anti-nuclear energy
* pro organic farming
* pro free-range farming
* pro off-shore wind
* pro carbon capture electricity generation
* socially conservative
* pro small-government
* anti big business
* protectionist in trade
* locally sourcing food

Find me one please

 

[MorkandMindy]

Just thought I'd share some resources for those undecided.

To get a good approximation of a party's general voting record, one should check the record of an MP from the party that has almost no rebellions and a good attendance record.(For example, Caroline Lucas for the Greens, Simon Wright for the Liberal Democrats, and Phil Wilson for Labour)

I was impressed by Caroline Lucas and by a fairly local MP before I left England, but it seems to go wrong somehow when, to be specific, a Labour PM decides to attack Iraq. Claire Short stood up for reason but somehow the PM lied his way into the confidence of others and we attacked a country that had never attacked us for a reason we were never told.


But to appease the right wing I quote their motto from a few years back:

 

[MorkandMindy]

...

As a party's official position on an issue can vary from their actions in parliament, these sites are useful for checking MP voting records:
All MPs - TheyWorkForYou
The Public Whip —
To get a good approximation of a party's general voting record, one should check the record of an MP from the party that has almost no rebellions and a good attendance record.(For example, Caroline Lucas for the Greens, Simon Wright for the Liberal Democrats, and Phil Wilson for Labour)


...

Do you think we would be better off without political parties?

 

[MorkandMindy]

...

I want a party that is:
* anti mass immigration
* anti-EU
* anti military adventurism
* anti-freetrade
* anti-nuclear energy
* pro organic farming
* pro free-range farming
* pro off-shore wind
* pro carbon capture electricity generation
* socially conservative
* pro small-government
* anti big business
* protectionist in trade
* locally sourcing food

Find me one please

Greetings Inkyfingers

I'm not heavily political but more into the specifics so I really like a list.

* anti mass immigration - the really big problem is migration and the core of that is that as part of the EU we don't have a right to refuse entry to other EU citizens, or so some MPs like to claim. And another problem is they could all just leave tomorrow. I'm with you on that.

* anti-EU - to me the big question here is whether they really can do any more damage. I think they probably can. I'm with you on that.

* anti military adventurism - no, the best form of defence is offence, we all know that, so go out and make as many enemies as possible and then hopefully they will fight among each other over who gets to blow up what. No, I'm with you on that.

* anti-freetrade - very perceptive. Free trade is sold as a benefit to the fussy consumer but actually only benefits company owners. Why should any company pay it's employees 8 pounds an hour when they can hire the same workers in China for 75p an hour. Dropping the minimum wage will make no difference because the amount management get paid would make the company non competitive even if the workers worked for free. Some managers do a lot of work but I've been around enough to know how many don't. Agreed

* anti-nuclear energy - Britain had a very good nuclear research program but it has been closed for many years. Money spent on nuclear reactors will go where so much British money now goes, to France and Germany.

* pro organic farming - Agreed

* pro free-range farming - Very agreed

* pro off-shore wind - Agreed

* pro carbon capture electricity generation - never thought about it

* socially conservative - I like the British people right now as they are, I'm worried about the future, that high house prices and huge migration into the country will leave what should be independent people in their parent's houses and without employment and basically as sub humans.

* pro small-government - now with Cyrill Smith gone I think you're in luck.

* anti big business - if there isn't an interventionist government how do you plan to restrain big business, I just a bit puzzled on how this one is going to work in practice.

* protectionist in trade - yes that is essential, particularly against the Germans who play by a whole different set of rules anyway.

* locally sourcing food - yes.

 

[Genersis]

Do you think we would be better off without political parties?

Tough question.

I think overall, they are good; especially for making politics more practical and accessible for the average voter.

But I feel the parties are too eager to whip their MPs, sometimes to vote against stances their party officially(/traditionally), and voters strongly support.

Though I am not totally against the idea of whips, especially whipping on issues central to the party's ideology; so casual voters not familiar with individual candidates can to some extent know what they are voting for.

 

[tonybeer]

Conservative.

Don't agree with everything they stand for, but I think they've done a decent job in terms of the economy.

 

[Inkfingers]

* anti big business - if there isn't an interventionist government how do you plan to restrain big business, I just a bit puzzled on how this one is going to work in practice.

Yes, like avoiding any imperial entanglements, that's the real trick...

Big govt, big capital and big labour are all the enemy of decent society. The question is how do you keep big capital in check without big government...

 

[MorkandMindy]

Conservative.

Don't agree with everything they stand for, but I think they've done a decent job in terms of the economy.

What are the figures? The Current Account I understand is the most important economic measure of present performance
.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Yes, like avoiding any imperial entanglements, that's the real trick...

Big govt, big capital and big labour are all the enemy of decent society. The question is how do you keep big capital in check without big government...

I can see possibly that the answer lies in what 'Big Government' actually means. Like pretty much all right wing lingo it seems to mean whatever the listener wants it to mean.

A good example is even the name of the party 'Conservative' could mean going back to the 1950s, which were actually very left of where we are now, or back to Dickens times, but there were Conservatives way back before 1700, I wonder what they wanted to go back to?

When I think of 'Conservative' I think of words that sound good but don't mean anything at all, pretty much like New Labour and the third party that tries to be in the middle between two other parties that are themselves sometimes indistinguishable. Sorry, I'm feeling a bit disillusioned.

 

[MorkandMindy]

OK, jumping out of the right left stuff, what about national alignment?

At present the UK is an ally of the US in so far as getting involved in wars in the Middle East even though the Middle East was passed from the French and British spheres of influence into the US sphere of influence at the end of WW2.

The UK is also part of the EU in so much as paying huge membership fees and allowing other EU countries to buy everything we have even though they won't let us buy what they have.

I think we are getting the wurst of both Worlds.

I think we would be better off with the US for a whole bunch of reasons.

The UK and US both have legal systems based on Common Law, Europe is under Napoleonic Law which works very differently.

The US would benefit from UK innovation and the UK from the less class structured way industry works in the US.

During WW2 through Lend Lease (?) the US gained control of the Middle East oil reserves from Britain and that is all the US really wanted, just the greed of the oil companies.

Europe wanted the rest, France took the British space program, Germany got pretty much all of British industry. Both of them and others have all the utilities and can and will take the rest of Britain's money supplying electricity.

Now Britain is half in and half out of the EU getting all the disadvantages and no advantages (if there are any), and helping the US with it's wars but getting no advantages from trade with the US either. Each time the US cuts off foreign contracts the UK gets cut off too. We are out in the cold with both groups.