So our poll cards turned up today, and by coincidence, over at Deep Thought, Sarah highlighted a page designed to help me decide who gets my vote at the upcoming election.
Anyway, I took the test, and to be honest, I doubt the results will come as a surprise to anybody who knows me…
Labour 2
Conservative -35 UK Independence Party -3 You should vote: Liberal Democrat
The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.
Take the test at Who Should You Vote For
Of course one thing that the site doesn’t take into account is the situation in your particular seat – in my case a sitting Conservative candidate without an overall majority, and the Lib Dems in second place. According to the BBC, the seat is number 34 on the target list so hopefully appearing on their list will mean that my pessimistic prediction earlier in the month about the focus of the campaign will be untrue. Having said that I’ll still be surprised to wake up on May 6th and find that the seat has changed hands!
Having said that, if you are in a seat where you feel that your vote won’t make a difference, you could always try a bit of tactical voting as suggested by Billy Bragg, through the Tactical Voter site who are again offering vote swaps trying to keep the Conservatives out, or the slightly bizarrely named Backing Blair that is trying to persuade people to vote Tony Blair out in the same way!
Alternatively if you don’t like the idea of tactical voting, or even voting at all, head along to Not Apathetic and register your opinion.