UK General Election - My own dilemma...

Hi Everyone,

With the UK General Election rapidly approaching, I find myself in a bit of a moral dilemma.

Who to vote for? (I'm not asking for suggestions on who to vote for by the way)

I live in South Shields (North East England for anyone wondering lol) Its a very safe Labour seat and has been since 1935 when the seat was taken from the Liberals, so my first thought is, Labour are going to hold the seat regardless, UKIP came second in the by-election that was held in 2013 caused by the resignation of David Milliband, but Labour still held onto the seat with ease.

I'm a 34 year old guy, married with my first child on the way, me and my wife both have decent jobs, I'm a Supervisor at the local Nissan plant and my Wife is a primary school teacher, we pay a modest mortgage and are financially comfortable, not rich lol. Some of the things that matter to me and my wife are,

* The future of the NHS
* Crime
* Pensions
* Education
* Foreign 'Aid' to countries that don't need it!
* Council Tax increase, and reductions of services received

Looking at all of the main party policies, none really jump out at me and say 'Vote for me'.

But more alarmingly, I find myself drawn towards UKIP, as much as I don't like the guy and find him to be repulsive and a xenophobe, Nigel Farage and UKIP tick more of the boxes for me than any of the other parties do, and this is my dilemma, the boxes are ticked at the 'thinly veiled' persecution of other groups of people, so I morally cannot use my one vote to vote UKIP.

So that brings me back to the 'main' parties, and as ive already stated, in South Shields, a vote for anyone other than Labour is a waste of time.

Is there any point? I know people are going to say "if you don't vote, you don't get a say" but seriously, whoever gets into 10 Downing Street, its not going to be any different is it?

I understand your dilema but please do not vote UKIP unless you fully research there party and what they truly stand for.

As you ask not for who to vote for I will not give you the reasons to vote for them but please look deeper.

I am sure he will be along at some point but if not take crazyewok's advice and vote for the individual that will do the best for your local area and forget about this political party nonsense.

Have things been good these past few years with a labour MP have they proven there worth as your MP on a local level?

If so stick with it, if not ask the other guy what he will do for you and your localality.

Just an opinion at 10pm on a saturday after a few beers...

a reply to: ukmicky1980

Ok mate you work in industry, like me. Maunufacturing, we are a rare breed these days, me ceramics you cars. We both rely on exporting our products to other parts of the world. Things are better when you work in industry under the Conservatives. Your Nissan plant was gained under Maggie

a reply to: ukmicky1980

Totally understand where you're coming from - I live in an area with a ridiculously safe Labour seat (Welsh valleys).

However, when looking at the 2010 election results, they actually won by the smallest margin in years (26.3%). But the most significant thing was that the voter turn out was - if memory serves me correct - around the 33% level.

Arguably, had everyone else turned up and voted instead of thinking "it's pointless voting for [insert party] they'll never get in here", that very safe Labour seat could now be someone else's.

I do have an advantage living where I do, in that I can elect to vote tactically for more impact (Plaid Cymru is a party with increasing local support). It never leaves a good taste in my mouth and, more often than not, I've had to follow my conscience & vote for my chosen party despite acknowledging that it's very unlikely they'll get in.

This site might be of interest - a really good questionnaire that matches your values & beliefs with a party's policies: Vote Match

Oh and one last thought: Worth Thinking About

Best of luck fella - it's a tough one, but it needs to be done

Personally I'd spoil the ballot on purpose because you already know that you will not be represented properly in that party dominated system. The candidates you pick will be forced to vote nationally as the party tells them...thus your voice is lost.

Spoil the ballot or find an independent you like that will listen to the locals. By 'playing along' you are giving tacit support to a broken system of representation.

Don't listen to the scaremongering of some people that say UKIP is about racism etc. They don't hate immigrants, they have many minorities in the party itself. All they stand for is a points based immigration system, which is similar to what most of the world has. All it means is that we Let in people with skills that we are short of here in the UK.

Nothing sinister about it, it's common sense and as I said most countries realise this and use a similar system.

If UKIP stand out for you, like it does for me too, it's because their policies are finally sensible compared to what we've had to work with before with liblabcon.

People still try and scaremonger and it's disturbing. These people are usually the type of people that read a news title and take it as fact before reading the whole story. For instance you will see all major MSM give a scary title like ' Farage blames foreign HIV for NHS Woes' but then you'll find out that Farage gave facts that others had tried to hide and the news story turns out to be that Nigel's comments were actually just common sense.

Think about the HIV statement from Farage for a minute, read his actually words, he didn't say he hated foreigners with HIV he said they 60% of HIV cases are from non British born people, and on the NHS they can get the antiretroviral drugs that cost the tax payer 25000 pounds a year, which roughly equates to 2 billion a year.

What Farage was trying to get across in a shocking way, to wake people up was, are we a National Health Service, or are we a World Health Service.

What's funny is that the rich and famous come out on Twitter and call Farage disgusting. Think about it though they don't know the strains of the health service, because they all get private treatment, so they can't begin to believe the strain that the NHS is under, when they're all with BUPA.

But again think about it, is our government ment to look after it's people or the world's people?

And to anyone who says we deserve to help these people after the UK plundered and pillaged the world in its empire days and we've all got blood on our hands. Well let me say to them, I have never killed anyone, I have never been a slave master, I have never done any of these horrible things, My conscience is clear and so should every ones be. No one here should feel guilty about things that happened over one hundred years ago.

You see major news outlets have to be impartial, so a story generally is, but you'll find the title sells a different story, and that's because the MSM knows that the majority of people only read the title.

Then as you can probably work out, people start to believe what the MSM tells them and so they start telling others, how vile a person is in this instance.

There's only one certainty, liblabcon don't tell it to you straight. UKIP do. That alone should sway you, but if not just remember that come voting day you can stick with the lies or you can vote for change.

Whatever you do dont vote Conservative if the auto industry gets into trouble they wont lift a finger to save it,our car industry in Australia will no longer exist in 2018,Ford,Toyota and General Motors are all shutting down here under a liberal government.

a reply to: lizziejayne

Cheers for the links, I came out a Green! certainly something to think about.

Pretty much what DAZ21 said, most of what you hear about UKIP is scaremongering, and they do have some great policies which appeal to a lot of people.

originally posted by: DAZ21
Don't listen to the scaremongering of some people that say UKIP is about racism etc. They don't hate immigrants, they have many minorities in the party itself. All they stand for is a points based immigration system, which is similar to what most of the world has. All it means is that we Let in people with skills that we are short of here in the UK.

Nothing sinister about it, it's common sense and as I said most countries realise this and use a similar system.

If UKIP stand out for you, like it does for me too, it's because their policies are finally sensible compared to what we've had to work with before with liblabcon.

People still try and scaremonger and it's disturbing. These people are usually the type of people that read a news title and take it as fact before reading the whole story. For instance you will see all major MSM give a scary title like ' Farage blames foreign HIV for NHS Woes' but then you'll find out that Farage gave facts that others had tried to hide and the news story turns out to be that Nigel's comments were actually just common sense.

Think about the HIV statement from Farage for a minute, read his actually words, he didn't say he hated foreigners with HIV he said they 60% of HIV cases are from non British born people, and on the NHS they can get the antiretroviral drugs that cost the tax payer 25000 pounds a year, which roughly equates to 2 billion a year.

What Farage was trying to get across in a shocking way, to wake people up was, are we a National Health Service, or are we a World Health Service.

What's funny is that the rich and famous come out on Twitter and call Farage disgusting. Think about it though they don't know the strains of the health service, because they all get private treatment, so they can't begin to believe the strain that the NHS is under, when they're all with BUPA.

But again think about it, is our government ment to look after it's people or the world's people?

And to anyone who says we deserve to help these people after the UK plundered and pillaged the world in its empire days and we've all got blood on our hands. Well let me say to them, I have never killed anyone, I have never been a slave master, I have never done any of these horrible things, My conscience is clear and so should every ones be. No one here should feel guilty about things that happened over one hundred years ago.

You see major news outlets have to be impartial, so a story generally is, but you'll find the title sells a different story, and that's because the MSM knows that the majority of people only read the title.

Then as you can probably work out, people start to believe what the MSM tells them and so they start telling others, how vile a person is in this instance.

There's only one certainty, liblabcon don't tell it to you straight. UKIP do. That alone should sway you, but if not just remember that come voting day you can stick with the lies or you can vote for change.

You say that UKIP stands out for you and I will agree that at first glance there policies do make sense but you only have to look a little deeper to realise that they are a shim sham bunch of right wing rejects who embarass themselves far more than not are riddled with internal conflicts, ego maniacs and links to far right groups who are in no fit state to run Estonia nevermind the UK.

I would be more concerned but as I think they will self destruct in the next few months and if not I plan to leave the country it is of little concern.

a reply to: ukmicky1980

I'm not voting, for the first time in my life no vote will be cast.

Reason....no matter who gets elected, it will be promises, promises, and then broken promises.
Same old every damn time.

You could vote for labour, they allowed the financial crash to happen, no boom and bust they said, yeah right Mr Brown.
Did they have a clue as to what the greedy gambling financial sector were up to, gambling with derivitives etc ??
Nope.
Did they leave the country in a bit of a financial frickin huge mess ??
Yep.
Will they do it again ??
Most likely.

You could vote Conservative, a party that has been very, very generous. Generous that is to the rich elite. The divide between the ultra rich and the rest of us peasants is bigger now than it's ever been.
Nice.
Cutbacks and austerity galore for us, obscene flashing the cash for the 1%
Will things improve ??
Nope.
Will the rich continue to get even richer ??
Yep.
Will these bunch of public school toffs get re-elected regardless ??
Most likely

You could vote UKIP, a party that is defo on the up, a party that sure talks the talk on immigration and border controls.
A party that would surely get us away from the Europe corrupt gravy train and its dictatorial laws.
Sounds rather tempting.
Problem is, Mr Farage IS the party. I sure can't name anyone else with an invite !!
Yeah, they must exist, but really they might as well not do baby.

Is this party capable of running all aspects of government ??
Unknown, but my bet would be nope.
Would Mr Farage break promises like the rest of em ??
Unknown, but my bet would be yep.
Will they make gains at the election, but not win it ??
Most likely

Hope this helps, because the government certainly won't !!
Whoever it is.

uk * monster raving loony crazy as hell * today

a reply to: nonspecific

We can say that about any other party if we look deep enough. The question is do I want the same old yet again, or something new.

And to uk today, you're right every party will have different policies on different matters and some you may like others you may hate, but nobody can be in total agreement with 100% of any party's policies, that just won't happen. But what party holds the majority of your views? That's who you vote for.

It's looking like we will end up with no majority again and we'll have a coalition or a multition lol. But your vote may just help one of the parties have a greater say and a greater chance to bring about at least some of the changes that you may be after.

originally posted by: ukmicky1980
Hi Everyone,

With the UK General Election rapidly approaching, I find myself in a bit of a moral dilemma.

Who to vote for? (I'm not asking for suggestions on who to vote for by the way)

I live in South Shields (North East England for anyone wondering lol) Its a very safe Labour seat and has been since 1935 when the seat was taken from the Liberals, so my first thought is, Labour are going to hold the seat regardless, UKIP came second in the by-election that was held in 2013 caused by the resignation of David Milliband, but Labour still held onto the seat with ease.

I'm a 34 year old guy, married with my first child on the way, me and my wife both have decent jobs, I'm a Supervisor at the local Nissan plant and my Wife is a primary school teacher, we pay a modest mortgage and are financially comfortable, not rich lol. Some of the things that matter to me and my wife are,

* The future of the NHS
* Crime
* Pensions
* Education
* Foreign 'Aid' to countries that don't need it!
* Council Tax increase, and reductions of services received
vote UKIP.

If vote I suggest that you:

forget about parties, they are a tag team. Example, In australia on party imposed a super profits tax but reduced the underlying tax rate by 2% . When other mob got in at the next election they took the super profits tax off but did not raise the underlying tax rate back up again. new result? the industry tax rate was reduced by 2%. A tag team result of, mot likely, a pre action agreement between the two parties.

do not vote for career politicians, they are only interested in staying on side of the right people to ensure they secure their endorsement for the seat.
Look at the connections of the candidate.
do they have a history of activism in some area of society
have been local councilors if so don't vote for them. Local government is a training ground for party based career politicians

Whats their views on more referendums on key issues. Do they argue in favor or do the make excuses why referendums should not be held?

do they regard, we the people, as the owners, controllers and masters of the servant government?

Can they explain the concept of the separation of powers?

Do they see themselves as servants or rulers?

do they vigorously publicly advocate for harsher standards of ethics for politicans/

etc

I agree with your dilemma, politics isn't all I thought it was. I wonder if in my lifetime a party will come along that serves my needs.

If you at the NHS, the cost of it, if we could get that right, we could afford a bigger defence budget and indigenous manufacturing leading to a more cutting edge technology and manufacturing and export. Pay the army more too.

We could afford a bigger police force.

I agree that our immigration is an issue.

jobs or lack of and the fact that people have to work longer, perhaps instead of pensions being the problem you give pensioners massive discounts and 100% tax free, that way they don't need as much.

And I do think that terminal unemployed should be made to attend college and work in government facilities, perhaps recycling, collecting waste or cleaning the streets. Dog Shiite DNA testing to stop "responsible" dog owners!

Prisoners too should be made to work.

Probably too simple/incorrect dreams of mine but it doesn't seem the country is going in the right direction.

originally posted by: khnum
Whatever you do dont vote Conservative if the auto industry gets into trouble they wont lift a finger to save it,our car industry in Australia will no longer exist in 2018,Ford,Toyota and General Motors are all shutting down here under a liberal government.

It's the other way round here. Britain had a company called MG Rover that went out of business under Labour and they let it disappear. They destroyed the company anyway during the Labour years in the 70's pandering to worker rights. Before that Labour in the 60's unified the successful independent car makers into a state run Leyland. Labour really destroyed our car manufacturing.

The Conservatives managed to save the day by getting the Japanese to build their early European plants here, Toyota, Nissan, Honda. They are very efficient, Nissan is the most efficient plant man for man in Europe. By bringing in the Japanese it has saved the parts supplier businesses that engineering in the UK somewhat depends on and Jaguar Landrover, Bentley, Rolls, etc, have been doing pretty well here recently.

Your Aussie plants were always going to go being honest and realistic. The local population of Australia is too small to support businesses of scale when you have countries to your north with much lower pay rates. Much easier to import from SE Asia, the USA and Europe than make small quantities locally.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

It's the other way round here. Britain had a company called MG Rover that went out of business under Labour and they let it disappear

Lets have the true facts.

Rover was flourishing under a joint R & D agreement with Honda. The Conservatives pulled the rug under Honda and sold Rover to British Aerospace. British Aerospace had no idea how to run a car manufacturer. They ended up selling the company to BMW. The Jaguar part of the business was sold to Ford. In 2008 under a Labour Government Ford sold Jaguar to Tata, and the company has flourished eversince.

BMW had no interest in taking Rover forward. Their only reason for purchasing Rover was to gain the Land Rover 4 x 4 technology that BMW didn't have. They also wanted the brand name " Mini "

Once BMW had what they wanted they put Rover up for sale. It was bought by by four ex Rover Directors under the guise of " The Phoenix Consortium" The end result was a typical case of unacceptable capitalism.

www.birminghampost.co.uk...

You can blame Labour for somethings but i am not letting you get away with this downright twist of true events

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

Things are better when you work in industry under the Conservatives. Your Nissan plant was gained under Maggie

Nearly choked on my Yorkshire Pudding reading that.

You can't honestly believe that do you?

The Tories absolutely decimated the whole of the UK's manufacturing base under Thatcher.
Whole industries shut down.....the North East became a manufacturing wasteland.

Sure, Nissan is a success story.....but how many horror stories are there?

The North East needs a hundred Nissan's if it is to regain its manufacturing heritage.

The Tories have given up hope on the North East and consider it a lost cause.
Labour take it for granted and offer little more.

The only advice I can offer the OP is to vote with your conscience and for the candidate that you feel will best represent the interests of you and your fellow constituents.

Party politics has far outlived its usefulness and fit for purpose.

originally posted by: DAZ21
Don't listen to the scaremongering of some people that say UKIP is about racism etc. They don't hate immigrants, they have many minorities in the party itself. All they stand for is a points based immigration system, which is similar to what most of the world has. All it means is that we Let in people with skills that we are short of here in the UK.

So no difference from other parties then? So why at all vote for UKIP if they simply want to maintain the status quo, like other parties?

I can't tell the difference between Tory and Labour, and I hate the Tories so I guess that means I also hate Labour.

Libdems can forget it, they let the Tories lead the coalition with hardly so much as a whimper in protest, they were just happy for their only chance to sit at the gov table for 5 years in return for keeping quiet.

I'm just fuming I can't vote for SNP, but if Labour will agree to co-ally with SNP then I will vote Labour (just to hoof the Tory pigs out) and hope SNP are as good as they are sounding, we'll need them to keep blue Labour in check.

If there is to be no Labour-SNP coaliton, then I'm voting Greens.

I don't really want to vote for any of the main 3 parties, they're all criminal and corrupt and will never serve to make life better in UK society. They'll only serve themselves, with our money. Screw them.

Looks like we're getting tories again any how if we vote or not.

SNP and Ukip have both said they would jump in bed with them.