General Election 2017 .... have you decided?

[Saracen]

Well, have you?

Note - I'm not asking what you decided. If you want to say I won't stop you, but it's NOT what I'm after. Besides, we have a poll for that already, in another thread.

What I'm interested in is whether, 7 days out, you've decided or not.

[Lanky123]

I would say I'm around 95% decided - barring extraordinary developments. I would never say 100% until I've voted because politicians frequently come up with increasingly creative ways to put me off.

Under another electoral system I would likely still be weighing up options but FPTP reduces the realistic choices I have.

[Splash]

I've only just realised that having moved around the corner 6 months back I'm now voting for a different seat. Need to see what the options are.

I know who I'll definitely not be voting for though, just a process of elimination to find the least bad option for what's left.

[Smudger]

Can we add an option for 'I know who I'm NOT voting for'? I've cut it down to 2 options, but I haven't heard much from either to decide between them

[Gerrard]

Nope. I disagree with enough of some key points of all the main choices that I can't in good conscious vote for it. On the other hand, I kind of feel guilty not voting at all.

[eltel]

if you don't vote and are not happy with the outcome you will only have yourself to blame

[Saracen]

if you don't vote and are not happy with the outcome you will only have yourself to blame

Not really. You could also blame a system that's loaded, almost to the point of being fixed, before we start. It's certainly loaded to the point of determining who won't win, and in many constituencies, of pretty much guaranteeing votes for all but one or maybe two are wasted.

Where I am, for instance, is a narhinal between two, and every election for decades has shown these two in first and second, with everybody else a HUGE distance behind. While technically possible, it would take a monumentous shift of an order of magnitude I doubt has ever been seen, perhaps short of some iconic local issue.

If you live in a seat utterly dominated by the incumbent with a massive majority, and that happens to be the one party you won't for for, then the odds of your vote making any difference are minuscule, as margins in previous will have confirmed.

Personally, I have lived in such an area, and I DID vote, but did so aware it was a futile gesture, and the result proved me right.


But even worse than that is that voting FOR a candidate gives thrm your personal mandate, and what if there isn't ANYBODY on the ballot you wish to give a mandate to? You can't vote for "None of the Above", and voting but spoiling the ballot is as futile a gesture as not voting since nobody knows why you spoiled it.

[scaryjim]

Nope. I disagree with enough of some key points of all the main choices that I can't in good conscious vote for it. On the other hand, I kind of feel guilty not voting at all.

I know which way I'm voting, but it's not because I agree completely with any party.

It's because if I don't want a Tory MP (and I really don't want a Tory MP) there's only one viable alternative in this constituency. It's not one I'd normally vote for, and I fully intend to spend the whole of the rest of the evening drinking to scour the taint from my brain. But I honestly believe that a Conservative government would be disastrous for the vast majority of the people in the country (note: not disastrous for "the country", which I don't really care about, but the people, who I do), so I'll do whatever I can to avoid that outcome.

If you genuinely can't choose a party you'd like to vote for, look at which you'd least like to be in power, and, if it is in your power to prevent them taking your local seat, vote accordingly.

[SeriousSam]

I know which way I'm voting, but it's not because I agree completely with any party.

It's because if I don't want a Tory MP (and I really don't want a Tory MP) there's only one viable alternative in this constituency. It's not one I'd normally vote for, and I fully intend to spend the whole of the rest of the evening drinking to scour the taint from my brain. But I honestly believe that a Conservative government would be disastrous for the vast majority of the people in the country (note: not disastrous for "the country", which I don't really care about, but the people, who I do), so I'll do whatever I can to avoid that outcome.

If you genuinely can't choose a party you'd like to vote for, look at which you'd least like to be in power, and, if it is in your power to prevent them taking your local seat, vote accordingly.

I assume when you say majority, that refers to mainly to those who are net beneficiaries from the state... seeing as they outnumber the net contributors.

[snedger]

Oh dear, just voted that I know who I will vote for and just realised that there is a possibility that I might change my mind.
Before we had the long government tenancies, power tended to seasaw between left wing, right wing every 5 years meaning that things couldn't tend towards being too left or too right.
Tories and Labour in their long tenancies have created irreparable problems and IMO the latest tory mismanagement has just gone too far with austerity measures.
Don't really want Labour to plunge the country in to debt again and I think that they will be worse than the tories on brexit negotiations, but can't contemplate another 5 years of cruel pain being inflicted on the most vulnerable.

[Smudger]

This gets me a bit. People saying Labour will plunge the country into debt, whereas despite 7 years of austerity, our debt is still increasing anyway.

I don't think Labour have a monopoly on debt

[opel80uk]

if you don't vote and are not happy with the outcome you will only have yourself to blame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

*Contains Swearing*

[EndlessWaves]

Not really. You could also blame a system that's loaded, almost to the point of being fixed, before we start. It's certainly loaded to the point of determining who won't win, and in many constituencies, of pretty much guaranteeing votes for all but one or maybe two are wasted.

I don't think that's fair. Look at votes for UKIP for example. In terms of MPs they've had very little success, just a single seat. But by getting over 10% of the vote their influence on politics has been significant. If nobody had voted for UKIP they would have been ignored and the referendum wouldn't have happened (yet).

Personally I haven't decided yet. Labour and the Lib Dems are both a possibility, the conservatives too under the right situations (a potential UKIP victory).

It's a shame we don't have a decent environmentalism party right now. Unfortunately the green party seems to have a manifesto assembled by a marketing department, consisting solely of policies designed to please different audiences. If they could have put together a more believable aim and got a better local candidate then they would have been high on my list.

[opel80uk]

This gets me a bit. People saying Labour will plunge the country into debt, whereas despite 7 years of austerity, our debt is still increasing anyway.

I don't think Labour have a monopoly on debt

The issue I have with the almost accepted narrative of Labour not being economically sensible is, and even if we say it's true that Labour alone caused the problems the UK finds itself in*, people are forgetting the state of the country that Labour took over in 1997 after 18 years of Tory Government. Schools were woefully under invested in, the NHS was, quell surprise, on it's knees again, and public spending was at 40% of GDP – considered low for a developed country, with the UK languishing in the bottom of those measurement tables comparing like for like countries, with all indicators at the time pointing to unprecedented levels of inequality and poverty. Having 18 years of a Majority meant it was no longer practical or believable to blame the previous Labour Government for the state the country found itself in at the time. The truth is Labour did spend, but the majority of that spending went on services that was desperately in need of spending, and they spent at a time when there was a huge increase in GDP, so they effectively had the money to do so. Had the Conservatives not starved the services they were overseeing to the extent they did, Labour wouldn't have needed to spend the money. Labour's fault partly lies in the level of spending that took place in the immediate aftermath of the crash until they lost the 2010 election, but even they could not have predicted how deep the recession would be at that time. Where Labour do have to accept the blame is where they continued the Conservatives de-regulation of the financial sector. That cannot be excused away, it shouldn't have been done and that was a major factor in the crash. That said, anyone thinking the Tories would've done anything different in that regard is kidding themselves.

It's the same myopic view that leads to people continually criticising Browns gold sell off, (which incidentally betrays a complete ignorance and lack of understanding as to why Governments would have gold in the first place. Hint – it's definitely not to speculate on the markets with), and yet conveniently ignores the Tories selling off Royal Mail on the cheap, or the waste of money that was Lansley's Health and Social Care Act. Most importantly, it ignores how the Conservatives promised to match Labour's Spending at every single election between 97 and 2005, only reneging on the same promise for the 2010 election in 2008 as a result of the crash. That Labour are fiscally irresponsible, or at least more irresponsible that the Conservatives, is a successful narrative, supported and pushed by the predominately right-wing print media, but not actually borne out of any real analysis. In fact, PRIME carried out an analysis of the respective Governments over roughly 55 years and found that it was Labour and not the Tories who were fiscally responsible, according to most key indicators. So you are quite correct in that Labour doesn't have a monopoly on debt – it's just you won't hear that from many too many places, because it doesn't fit with the false truth narrative.


*(Labour didn't of course; virtually all Governments in place at the time of the global crash in Europe took the blame, whether they be fiscally conservative, socialist or otherwise)

[Xlucine]

I'm in a safe seat, and the two runners up are pretty even below the frontrunner. One of them might recover to the levels they were at in 2010, but pigs might fly too. So I'm still undecided.

[snedger]

Holy moly!
Labour used to be Socialist - they became tory lite when Tony and cronies loved power more than principles - referring back to my previous post
regarding that seasawing left/right wing, power was good for the country still stands, so long as a real labour pm gets in.
How anyone can defend the obnoxious trendy labour, compared to the real current day real socialism is beyond me.
I am seriously prepared to vote for Corbyn, against a lot of my principle beliefs, just to swing the seasaw toward a more favorable place.
However, the numpty just did announce that he would give residential status to all EU peops before any negotiation - throw away negotiation points bad DUH!
The EU want to make an example of the UK's "poor" brexit choice - there were timely comments that almost certainly scared the French vote to thankfully not vote for a hateful party - but, I think that the result might have closer without the EU intervention.
BTW I am actually long sighted