Who have you voted for?

[Baggies_Boy_Tony]

Nobody/Party Yet

[Prando]

Whilst I rarely contribute to O/T topics, for the first time, in my recollection, I voted for the candidate I considered is the one most engaged in local affairs.

[9goals2hattricks3pen]

Nice to read some sense on here about Reform. They would cause carnage if they ever had a semblance of power.

I will vote for Lib Dems, as I did last time. Its quite an easy answer for me as they currently hold the seat I live in and are favourites to win again.

If I lived elsewhere and it was out of Labour/Tory I may have voted Labour holding my nose. But thankfully I don't have that problem - which shows you that our voting system needs reforming in my view.

I do think the Tories will get obliterated, which isn't always a good thing. Because it's always good to have a decent opposition to hold the government to account. Something we haven't had for most of the last 14 years of the Tories, until Starmer took over.

For the first 5 years we had the Coalition and for 2.1/2 years we had a govt. relying on the awful DUP. I know like many others you see PR as the solution but for me the problem is an absence of quality politicians especially leaders. No system will solve that.

I like strong government and imo on the last 50 years we have had only 2.

Interestingly only 3 Labour Prime Ministers have ever won a parliamentary majority.

[baggieal]

Not even voted to be honest as all a shower of s hite! Loads of friends have voted Lib Dem in my town to get rid of the Tory MP up his own a rse. I did ask them why Lib Dems when they don’t want to do nothing to stop the boats. The answer was illegals would never come to our town so it won’t affect us. Some logic in that as past caring too as it won’t impact on me.

I will say for those who think they will see improvements under Starmer then think again. Reform will grow stronger and anything that happens in France could grow it further.

[Grand Wazoo]

I will keep my powder dry but I will say that i would vote for Pol Pot rather than Labour.

[WBA123]

For the first 5 years we had the Coalition and for 2.1/2 years we had a govt. relying on the awful DUP. I know like many others you see PR as the solution but for me the problem is an absence of quality politicians especially leaders. No system will solve that.

I like strong government and imo on the last 50 years we have had only 2.

Interestingly only 3 Labour Prime Ministers have ever won a parliamentary majority.

Whilst I agree about the quality of the politicians being the requirement, the big issue for me is how we choose these politicians.

How were Johnson and Corbyn the leaders at the last election?

People who go far in politics do so because they know the right people, particularly in the media and they play the media/PR card (see Boris Johnson) or they are backed by a large Union (see Corbyn). These things should not be a precursor as to how far you should rise within your party.

I'd like to see more cross party decisions. And I'd like to see smarter people who have real life experience in parliament. Boris Johnson / Corbyn are career politicians. Rishi Sunak is an extremely wealthy guy who was parachuted into a safe seat a few years ago.

I don't know how it would be resolved or the full answer to the question, but the system needs to change to encourage the right type of politicians we have representing us. Not just one's like Corbyn and Johnson. PR seems like a good start to me.

[WBA123]

Not even voted to be honest as all a shower of s hite! Loads of friends have voted Lib Dem in my town to get rid of the Tory MP up his own a rse. I did ask them why Lib Dems when they don’t want to do nothing to stop the boats. The answer was illegals would never come to our town so it won’t affect us. Some logic in that as past caring too as it won’t impact on me.

I will say for those who think they will see improvements under Starmer then think again. Reform will grow stronger and anything that happens in France could grow it further.

Stopping the boats isn't even on my radar when looking at who to vote for. Its far, far down my list.

I'd rather vote for a party who will try and fix our public services. Getting a GP appointment would be a good start.

We also need to grow the economy. Re-joining the EU would help with that. I do like Starmer for at least talking about growth. This is key, because our economy is stagnant.

[baggieal]

Stopping the boats isn't even on my radar when looking at who to vote for. Its far, far down my list.

I'd rather vote for a party who will try and fix our public services. Getting a GP appointment would be a good start.

We also need to grow the economy. Re-joining the EU would help with that. I do like Starmer for at least talking about growth. This is key, because our economy is stagnant.

I agree but ask a GP or Hospital why they are so over stretched and they will say the lack of staff and growing population the size of Southampton every year! So it comes back to so many illegals coming in which costs 4 billion and a break down of public services.

Starmer had a free university education so maybe he can fathom why many students don’t want to study medicine now. Five years of huge debt around 150K minimum. Did the Tool Makers Son have this debt? No so he’s a hypocrite in my book!

[Albionic68]

We have a total of seven candidates 'fighting' for election in our ward. I am yet to see any of them in person and I have never seen our MP anywhere in our constituency. Ever. This despite a much trumpeted mantra of being local and demanding local votes for local candidates.

By a remarkable coincidence the major opposition candidate appears to have been parachuted in from somewhere else having been very soundly beaten in a different local election last year. Never heard of him before last week though but I can assure you all he looks like a right pillock.

Such is the level of cross party apathy we've only had three election flyers through our door. Two were posted on behalf of the Socialist Party candidate who will be holding a post election get together in a small room over a pub. I don't think they're expecting many attendees. I may turn up for a laugh; and some beer.

Among the others there's a Green who's 'really passionate' about the environment but hasn't mentioned anything about how they propose to save the planet (not posting flyers presumably) or what they intend to do about all the fly tipping and HMOs which in turn blight our area. We also have a young Reform candidate who happens to be mixed race. Would it be cynical of me to suggest he's seen as an acceptable face of the party? No idea but I like to think he posted our third flyer in person.

There's a Lib Dem whose name I can't pronounce with a website directing me to her party's website because she can't be bothered to say why she should be elected and then there's the Independent candidate who's pointed out everything's broken without proposing how to fix 'everything'. Oh, and he's going to bring an end to hostilities in Gaza. All on his own presumably.

The following are for certain. I only know about said candidates because of three pamphlets and because I bothered my @rse to try and find out; I hadn't even heard of four of them until I Googled who's 'battling' for my X. What an uninspiring shower of s hit. Decisions decisions (apologies to those without space bars for the flagrant use of paragraphs 😉 ) .

[mickd1961]

Stopping the boats isn't even on my radar when looking at who to vote for. Its far, far down my list.

I'd rather vote for a party who will try and fix our public services. Getting a GP appointment would be a good start.

We also need to grow the economy. Re-joining the EU would help with that. I do like Starmer for at least talking about growth. This is key, because our economy is stagnant.

Contradicting yourself there 123.

We had net migration of around 1.4m over the past two years, in many communities such as where I used to live it’s the incoming migrants who’ve put unbearable stress on public services.

How can we possible allow in around 750,000 people a year when we can’t build anywhere near the 350,000 new homes we need each year?

Also, when does this stop?

At this rate, in 20 years we’ll have another 15 million people living here, in 100 years it’ll be 75 million additional people and the population will be more than double what it is now.

It’s untenable.

I constantly ask people like yourself where do you set the limit?

Seemingly you don’t?

I don’t understand, I just don’t understand?