Would You Change Your Vote Now?

[Hots on]

Isn't it a wasted vote to vote for your European representative to be someone who doesn't want to be there?

 

Especially since the MEP's have no say in whether we're in the EU or not.

 

They're are in a group in Brussels that argue and vote against things that threaten the sovereignty of individual member states.

 

There is quite an impressive amount of British Euro sceptic MEP's.

[suzyoo]

would still vote Lib-Dem. never the Tories, they stand for most that's wrong with the world as far as I'm concerned and labor's lost it's way. the Lib-Dem are like the girl i didn't notice back in the day but would take out for a drink now while i mourn for the one who betrayed me.

 

a lib-dem vote is a conservative vote

[cressida]

I voted Lib/Dem - not any more

[Vague_Boy]

Just wondered how many people who voted in the last election, for one of the three main parties, would now change their vote?

 

I would.

 

I would write "You're all a bunch of <expletive deleted>" on the voting slip.

 

Hey, even spoiled ballot papers have to be counted, and the end result would have been no different.

[Rupert_Baehr]

If I was a British citizen I'd also vote for the Green Party or UKIP. I don't like aligning myself to specific parties or people, but that's what I would do. I'm a strident environmentalist, but I believe that civil liberties are essential to society so I also agree with UKIP's position on direct democracy.

 

Surely, you have to look at the whole of a party's manifesto before you make a decision?

 

The Green Party have said that if they get elected, they would remove ALL limits on immigration, every person who wanted to come to the UK and could find the means to do so would be allowed to stay, those who had difficulty in getting to the UK would have their travel costs refunded and every person in the UK would receive a non means tested 'Citizen's income' from the State which would be sufficient to maintain a decent standard of living. - Which, presumably, means enough to rent a flat/house, heat it, light it, buy food and clothing and enjoy a reasonable social life. They are also going to 'discourage' (tax the hell out of) privately-owned vehicles and 'encourage' people to use a cheap and frequent system of public transport. (Which presumably will be available nationwide.)

 

They didn't suggest a figure, but could you rent a flat in London (remember, it's not means-tested, so everybody would receive enough to live in the most expensive place in the country), pay for the heating and lighting, pay council taxes, buy food and clothing, buy a TV (apparently, if you haven't got a TV you're 'deprived') and pay for a reasonable social life on £200 a week? - That social wage would necessarily be tax free. - There's not a lot of point in paying somebody enough to live on and then taking some of it away.

 

Assuming the Citizen's income was £200 a week. Consider a bus driver who is married with 3 children. (S)he has a family income of £50,000 a year tax free. Do you really think (s)he's going to drive a bus for about £8 an hour?

 

Who is going to operate this cheap and frequent public transport system?

 

You probably won't need a public transport system, because there will be little point in going anywhere. No shops (would you work for minimum wage in a shop if you had a family income of £50k after tax?) No pubs (same argument) no public services.

 

Who is going to pay for the Citizen's income?

 

Firms would have to close because they would be unable to attract employees. Anybody who is prepared to work and who can leave the country will do so. (Assuming, of course there are still airports (the Greens don't want people to fly) or ships and assuming other countries would take them.

 

That would probably not be a bad thing. You would need the room. There are over 6 Billion people on the planet, 90% of whom earn rather less than people in the UK earn, more than 80% of whom don't even have clean drinking water supplies. When they find out that if they go to the UK, they won't have to work and the State will give them money (indeed, the State will pay their travelling costs) do you think there will be many people keen to take up the offer?

 

Where are you going to put the 4 Billion or so immigrants?

 

I'm not making this up. It's all in the Green Party Manifesto. Would you really vote for a party with such hare-brained and un-costed policies?

 

The current electoral system, like many say, is unfair.

 

Under the UK system, the peope do not vote for 'representatives' they vote for Members of Parliament. It is expected, however, that the MP elected for a given constituency will pay at least some attention to the wishes and needs of his/her constituents.

 

If you had a system which allocated MPs to each party on the basis of the percentage of votes cast nationally for that party, then how would you decide which MP represented which constituency? Or would you abandon the lip-service paid (under the present system) to MP's 'representing' their constituents?

 

If MPs were allocated to constituencies, then surely it would be possible (in theory) for the people of Sheffield (who tend to vote Labour) to wake up on the morning after a General Election and find that they had 4 or 5 Conservative MPs.

 

Do you think that would be more fair than the present system?

 

Do you think that the people of Sheffield (or anywhere else, for that matter) would take kindly to having somebody they didn't want and somebody they didn't vote for foisted upon them?

 

How do you think the voters in a constituency with a high immigrant population would react if they found they had a BNP MP? (For that matter, how do you think the voters in any constituency would feel if they were 'awarded' a BNP MP?)

 

FPTP has its problems, but a purely proportional allocation system is (IMO) unthinkable.

[Radomu]

Under the UK system, the peope do not vote for 'representatives' they vote for Members of Parliament. It is expected, however, that the MP elected for a given constituency will pay at least some attention to the wishes and needs of his/her constituents.

 

If you had a system which allocated MPs to each party on the basis of the percentage of votes cast nationally for that party, then how would you decide which MP represented which constituency? Or would you abandon the lip-service paid (under the present system) to MP's 'representing' their constituents?

 

If MPs were allocated to constituencies, then surely it would be possible (in theory) for the people of Sheffield (who tend to vote Labour) to wake up on the morning after a General Election and find that they had 4 or 5 Conservative MPs.

 

Do you think that would be more fair than the present system?

 

Do you think that the people of Sheffield (or anywhere else, for that matter) would take kindly to having somebody they didn't want and somebody they didn't vote for foisted upon them?

 

How do you think the voters in a constituency with a high immigrant population would react if they found they had a BNP MP? (For that matter, how do you think the voters in any constituency would feel if they were 'awarded' a BNP MP?)

 

FPTP has its problems, but a purely proportional allocation system is (IMO) unthinkable.

 

Regional and proportional representation can be compromised. In Japan, you vote for both the regional representative of your constituency AND the proportional representative of the party of your choice. Some representatives don't represent any constituency, while most still do. This allows smaller parties with spread out voters to get some seats..

[steiner]

None of the above... I voted UKIP and will vote for them again!

 

bang on I voted UKIP as well,the rest are a joke.

[Rupert_Baehr]

The UK has (roughly) 60 million inhabitants and 646 MPs (and that's ignoring the Scottish Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies)

 

Approximately 1 MP for every 93000 inhabitants.

 

The US has approximately 300 million inhabitants and 435 Congressmen. One Congressman for every 690,000 inhabitants.

 

The UK has approximately 7 times as many MPs per capita than does the US.

 

Is the British government 7 times as effective? - I don't think so.

 

I think you'd have an uphill battle persuading the voters in the UK to elect even more MPs. Most people I know seem to think that there are too many snouts in the trough already and that they do too little for their constituents.

 

I do not like the party system, nor do I like the system of electing MPs, nor indeed, do I like the fact that they are not Representatives, but Members of Parliament. They pretend to be very willing to listen to their cnstituents when it's election time, but after that, most MPs seem to ignore the people who put them there and instead listen to the bosses of their party.

 

Consider the various levels of government (and I'll use a rural area as the example) :

 

At the bottom of the heap is the Parish Council which is elected by the voters in each Parish.

 

Above them there is the District Counncil, elected by the voters in each District.

 

Above them is the County Council, elected by the voters in each County (Councillors usually stand for 'wards'and are elected by the residents in their ward, not by the county as a whole.

 

Above them is Parliament.

 

If the Parish voters elected sufficient members to staff the council plus one 'spare' they the council - or the voters - could select one councillor to be put forward for District council elecions. The District voters would elect sufficient District councillors from that pool to staff the District council plus one or more (as required) 'spares' to form the pool for the County council. The County voters (all of them) would elect sufficient County councillors from that pool to staff the County council, plus sufficient 'spares' to stand for Parliament.

 

Those who eventually became representatives (because they would act as representatives, if they wanted to be elected) would have been elected as Parish then district then County councillors before they became eligible to be considered for a seat in Parliament. Once they were elected to Parliament, the ywould be directly accountable to (and recallable by) the people who put them there. (You might need a couple of 'spares' to replace them in Parliament if they were sacked by the voters.)

 

You would at least get Representatives who had some idea about (and some interest in) the plight of those who elected them.

 

A few years ago David Cameron selected a candidate for a safe seat in a Norfolk constituency. Not only did the local people have no say in who their candidate would be, but the local Conservative party (who didn't want that particular person as a candidate) were over-ruled and told they had to accept Cameron's choice.

 

The voters (those who intended to vote Conservative) were given what -to me - seemed to be a very un-democratic choice. 'Vote for the person I want in Parliament or vote for another party'.

 

No wonder the turnout at so many By elections and General elections is so poor!

 

If there were no formal political parties, there would be no 'loyal opposition' but that would not mean that all MPs would vote in the same way, that they couldn't elect an 'administration' or that they couldn't form alliances to vote in a particular manner - indeed, in all probability, they would do so, but those alliances would change and the make-up of the administration might also change during the life of a Parliament. Sometimes it would be slightly left of centre and sometimes slightly right. It would, however, tend to reflect the wishes of the people, because the people could recall their representatives if they were dissatisfied with them.

 

It would lead to 'Pork-Barrel' politics, but what's wrong with that? If the electors send somebody to Parliament, then do they not have the right to expect that the person they send will do his or her best to further their interests and to obtain for them that which they desire and or need?

 

In 2007, I was living in the US. There was an election to appoint a new congressman where I lived. The candidates (both Republican and Democrat, and there were 2 or 3 of each, so each party held a primary to select one candidate to go forward for election ) were local people - An outsider wouldn't have stood a chance of getting elected.

 

Once elected, the Congressman will tend to follow party policies, but if there is a conflict between the policies of his/her party and the wishes of the electorate, the electorate (irrespective of whether or not they support her/his party) will (to at least some extent) influence how (s)he votes. They do seem to be aware that they are representatives of the people first and party members second.

[Frank Sidney]

The Greens manifesto reads as though its been written by a well intentioned 12 year old humanities class..

[Mecky]

I vote for the party whose future policies make most sense to me.

After listening to David Camerons speech this morning and the one a couple of weeks ago I am impressed and pleased to see that he has the courage to do what many people have been saying is needed.

I did not vote conservative.

 

Many, but not most, as the opinions polls show. If you voted conservative, you're going to get what you deserve because that's what you've knowingly accepted despite the fact the Conservatives didn't win the election. The rest of us, the vast majority, will have to deal with it in whatever manner we feel necessary.