Can somebody please explain to me what each party is offering/promising as I have no idea who to vote for.

[Amch]

Never been into politics, voted a couple of times and each time felt I just voted who I thought was best out of a bad bunch.

Now that I am in my late 20s I feel I should really start to educate myself and at least know who I want to vote for and not just cross the same box as family and friends!

Would someone be so kind as to briefly explain to me how each of the main parties differ on key policy areas?

Thank you

This post sounds strangely familiar. As you obviously have internet access, read each parties manifesto, they are freely available on Google.

VoteForPolicies isn't up and running yet for this election but it will be soon. That site will allow you to see which party actually aligns with your preferences.

BBC News - When is the UK general election and who can vote?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62064552
You may find this useful. It gives links to all the manifestos as well as explaining the election.

You need to find out who is standing for your local area.
Not all areas are represented by all parties so even if there's a party that you really like their policies - you can't vote for that party if no one in your area is representing them.
Write a list of who you can vote for, go online, read their plans, make your decision.
That's it.

You won't get an impartial response free of bias by asking strangers on the internet.
There's a world of resources at your fingertips - Google, AI, YouTube.. take a political spectrum test to ascertain which party aligns best with your own principles. Read summaries of each parties manifesto. I live in a very strong Lib Dem constituency. The only other contender is Conservative, they're not far off being neck and neck so a Labour vote would be wasted. Please do your own research with all this in mind.

Lots of comparisons out there, eg this one:
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a61170366/uk-general-election-2024-party-policies/

As PP said, keep an eye on Vote for Policies when their 2024 link goes live and you can complete a survey that works out what matters to you and suggests who has closest policies.

The short answer, of course, is don’t vote Conservative unless you relish another five years of this increasingly cruel shitshow. And if you don’t want a Conservative MP, go onto one of the tactical voting sites and see who the best alternative is for your constituency.

She's had neutral advice so far.

Apart from me 😁

uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz

This is helpful.

If your constituency has standing MPs looking to retain their seat, you can look up each individual’s voting record.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/

What appeals to you most out of the following:

Cocaine over the counter in chemists? Vote Green
National service? Vote Tory
Non-binary ID? Vote Lib Dem
Free motorhomes for party officials? Vote SNP
Fully funded sex change? Plaid Cymru
Smoking in pubs and no immigration? Reform
Polite middle class people to stand around ineffectually looking sad and anguished at the shitshow the country is in? Labour

😆Makes me want to spoil my vote.

Major parties - the Moon on a stick. Whatever you're concerned about, they're either for or against it, whatever it is and the other side have either screwed it up or will be guaranteed to screw it up if they have the chance - just to get you to vote for them.

Lib Dems in particular - not being the party you don't like the most, so if you don't like Labour but don't want to vote Conservative, them and if you don't like Conservative but don't want to vote Labour, them. If it came to a hung Parliament, they'll make a deal with anybody that promises them a sniff of minor Ministerial allowances.

Reform - socking it to those useless Tories and making Farage richer and on TV more than ever. Side order of 'I'm not racialist, but...'

Everybody else - well, if you're going to effectively spoil your vote by not voting for the two with a realistic prospect of winning in your constituency can you do it for me so I don't lose my deposit and get a fun night out with a photo of me smiling instead of in the background, please?

Smoking in pubs and no immigration? Reform

More like smoking in pubs and no trade routes through France once we upset them by dumping the boat refugees back on their shores

Thanks all. I should have re worded it to be honest (sorry rushed the post - half concentrating, it’s a chaotic time of day for me!!!).

I have spent a fair bit of time reading each of the main parties manifesto’s. The problem I have is that they are quite similar (cutting taxes of some form, pumping more money i to the NHS etc etc) however what differs (massively in some areas) is their figures and the numbers that each of them come up with (one example is Reform pledging to set out an extra £17bn each year for the NHS, where the tories are pledging only £1bn extra a year). How can that figure differ so much? Are these figures actually pulled from thin air or have they been genuinely calculated appropriately… iyswim.. this is what I’m lost over.

Reform know they won't be in charge, so they can say whatever they want.

It's not neutral, no, but it's sensible 😉

@Amch OK I'm tired of politics to be honest but I'm going to try and say something about your example.
The NHS and funding. Reform isn't even a proper party, it's Nigel Farage's vanity project and they will not get anywhere near power do they can promise unicorns with no fear of being held to account. The Tories have been in charge of the NHS for the last fourteen years and whenever challenged on anything to do with it will simply blah - we have increased the funding by x billion etc etc. Which may be technically true because it's possible to do great trickery with big complex numbers but doesn't deal with the fact that it's still underfunded and underesourced. Labour is traditionally the party who champions the NHS but they have also traditionally thought that spending wildly solves all. No-one has all the answers and the competitive adversarial system we have looks less and less functional but there's no obvious way out of it.
That's all I can really muster at the moment.
We're in deep shit and an election isn't going to change that, nor is your vote.
Having said that please vote and continue to learn and question, it's important. But no miracles of change are going to emerge from the results of this general election.

BBC general election website breaks it all down into easy to digest bite size pieces.

If you are in your late 20s have a look about and see if you like what the Conservatives have done to the Uk.
brexit. NHS in tatters. Education in tatters. sewage in the seas. High inflation and you prob can’t afford to buy your own house.

Labour, whilst not perfect, will run the country a lot better. Rachel Reeves worked at the Bank of England and has good plans.

Yes, I gave her a link upthread.

Yes, the reform numbers are plucked out of the air, safe in the knowledge they will never have to actually do it.

Thank you I will check out the BBC link tonight. Thank you also to@heldinadream.

I think that's what I'll be doing!

This wonderfully smacks of what we call in Scotland 'playing the daft lassie / laddie', or faux näivism. 😄

Although I do find it kind of cute that the parties send the interns out to canvass on social media, I wish they'd invest their money in grown-up stuff.