ot Dave Cameron

[millmoorlane]

You might. I vote for the candidate I think will best represent me. I've voted for a good local MP before who wasn't from my favoured party.

Admittedly, you wouldn't expect a staunch socialist to vote for a really good local right wing Tory but there's room for movement, in my view anyway.

[fivetide]

Technically correct but in essence you vote for the ideology of the central party and its leader.

Exactly.

I don't see eye to eye with walt on politics at all but he's spot on for this. There are those, party members and dyed in the wool labour or tory voters who will vote for the same party no matter what. But for a lot of other people, they'll vote because they buy into a personality and the ideology. The party leader and would be PM is the embodiment of that so that is who they vote for.

The fact the knives will be out internally is why I don't think it was quite a good move but i can see the benefits too as others have also laid out.

[mygiddypant]

Yes and no.

Yes because it comes across as a bit arrogant and opens up debate about leadership when we don't need one.

No because he's being honest. He's clearly said if you return a Conservative government that is what you will get for the full five years. He's not trying to be Mugabe and hang on forever and hasn't made any pacts he can go back on like Labour did (or force a prime minister on us we didn't vote for like Labour eventually did) so in that respect, good move.

All in all though, I think he'd have been better keeping quite until the issue needed to be resolved.

Couple of points with this.

Firstly, no one votes for the Prime Minister so Labour didn't force that on anyone last time. You vote for your MP. A Conservative government could make Miliband Prime Minister if they wanted and he agreed.

Secondly, there's no way he'd stay for the full term if he's planning on

[jolly_roger]

You are wrong MML, about 30,000 people voted for the Prime Minister last election, they all lived in Witney. I might be voting for the Prime Minister this time as the Labour candidate for my constituency is Ed Milliband.

You're not voting for the PM though. You're voting for your local MP.

The biggest party then tries to form a government. Whoever leads that Government is PM.

Your vote isn't for the PM, it's for the person representing you in parliament.[/quote]

Technically correct but in essence you vote for the ideology of the central party and its leader.[/quote]

Correct and if you do that without examining what they actually stand for you get a "Rotherham situation"

[Ellis_D]

Although technically correct that you are voting for you local MP, I would take an educated guess that most people are voting for the party leader and the party itself.

Thus, lots of people might not even know who their local MP or candidate is, but will vote for that party as it is closest to their ideology (or the ideology the party pretends to be), or the leader of that party as they like what he/she says or stands for.

For example, Maggie Thatcher, Tony Blair and Nigel Farage. All for vastly different reasons, all very likeable/hateable, depending on your point of view, were/are very good leaders of their parties and would/will have numerous people voting for them because of the way they present themselves and the views they give.

So I think it is very naive to believe that people don't vote in a general elcection for a leader of a party.

[mygiddypant]

You are wrong MML, about 30,000 people voted for the Prime Minister last election, they all lived in Witney. I might be voting for the Prime Minister this time as the Labour candidate for my constituency is Ed Milliband.

You're not voting for the PM though. You're voting for your local MP.

The biggest party then tries to form a government. Whoever leads that Government is PM.

Your vote isn't for the PM, it's for the person representing you in parliament.[/quote]

Technically correct but in essence you vote for the ideology of the central party and its leader.[/quote]

Correct and if you do that without examining what they actually stand for you get a "Rotherham situation"[/quote]

Or you get a "Home Counties" situation.