To find myself quite envious of people in marginal seats?

[drivinmecrazy]

I'm in a constituency with a huge Conservative majority. To my mind our MP is a prize twat (James Cleverly) and was only parachuted into our constituency because it was so safe and he's nothing more than a slimy career politician.
Some how we have always been a Conservative safe seat apart from a very short spell under a Labour MP.
I don't want to vote Conservative for many reasons but primarily Brexit (I have in the distant past been an historical Tory voter but much has changed over the past ten years).
So to my point. If you are lucky enough to live in an area where your vote might actually make a difference then you must feel more empowered than me in a safe seat when any vote against the Tories is nothing but an insignificant protest vote, no better than non voting or spoilt ballot.
I almost feel disenfranchised

this is a man, who is himself a private landlord, who voted against the bill to insist that all private rental accommodation be 'fit for human habitation'. He is a monster.)

Icantreachthepretzels, my Tory MP is a private landlady who also voted against the bill to insist that all private rental accommodation be 'fit for human habitation'.

I wonder how many of them there are?

I’d gladly swap with you OP! I’m in an extremely marginal constituency - the SNP have a majority of less than 30 over the Tories.
It means we have to campaign right up to the wire and try to mobilise every possible vote, to try and get the SNP out. If we fail, they’ll start banging on about yet another damn independence referendum, and we’ll have to hit the campaign trail AGAIN to stop them breaking up our country and bankrupting Scotland. My old feet are aching at the thought of all those miles of pavements and letterboxes!

Depends, mine is marginal between tory or snp. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

I'm in a small constituency who made the national news in 2017 for electing a Labour MP after being a safe Tory seat for decades. I like him, but I feel that it won't happen again. I'm happy to use my first GE vote (became a citizen last year) to support him. But I didn't want it to happen so soon - I'm quite sure we are not a marginal at the moment

YANBU.

Our MP is the horrible old arsehole Edward Leigh. He routinely gets 50% of the vote, so my vote will make no difference, but I have to case it anyway.

Tory safe seat here too and I hate it :( it makes me so sad knowing my vote against him doesn't matter at all because he won by over 30% last time. I'd just like a chance of ousting the Tories but no.

YANBU - although my seat is safe for the party I'd vote for anyway, so it's not quite as bad for me!

FPTP is a terrible, unrepresentative system.

If you want a PV find out where your nearest marginal Labour seat is and help campaign even if it's just leafleting. There is too much resting on this election, if you don't want more of the same and worse then you can't take a back seat.

Check out events.labour.org.uk to find events in your nearest marginal seat.

People talking about voting Lib Dem - you do understand that they have advocated for greater austerity and a further pact with the Conservatives?

Those thinking of voting for minor parties, I sincerely hope that you understand how the First Past The Post system works and that such a vote is not only literally wasted but that it will wash out blue.

I've basically been left with no-one to vote for. I appreciate I'm not alone in this. I've voted Labour most of my life but I cannot stomach a Corbyn government. The Lib dems, given they are meant to occupy the middle ground and therefore should be more popular, have somehow managed to make themselves a waste of space and a waste of a vote. I'm left with a choice of who I hate the most between SNP and Tories. That has to be the SNP so I'm left as a Labour voter, voting for Tory more than likely.

What has this country become?

I’m in a marginal seat and I have a feeling it will go from labour to Tory in this election judging from local feeling.

I quite like our Labour candidate but I am not keen on the Labour Party as a whole right now.

@FaFoutis

It would be difficult to be more of a wet-lipped wanker than my MP. But all the wealthy old people will vote him in again, despite him never showing his face in his constituency
My vote means nothing

Ditto, think you live where I do ! (don't want to say where!) That is my MP off to a T. He's been in the seat for bloody 20 years, doesn't use social media so I can't tweet him, I can only email. He doesn't reply, except one of those generic emails saying he's busy.

He really does need booting out , Labour and LD tied for second place but probably with no hope of getting him out as majority is about 10,000.
Oh, and he voted against the proposal that landlords make their rentals habitable. This was a bill in the wake of Grenfell. He's a landlord himself. Funny that...

I wish I lived in a marginal seat, I would volunteer to distribute leaflets or whatever, if I did.

I wish people would vote for the party not the person (Corbyn). It matters.

Strange things can happen, I thought I lived in one of the safest Tory seats - Kensington - and look how that went down last time.....

When I say Labour and LD tied for second place, I mean it alternates and is very close, not that they literally have the same number of votes!

On the other side of the coin safe seats are also a lot less stressful on election night. And it makes me feel safe that the vast majority of my neighbours have the same mindset.

Sadly, found here- they aren’t of the same mindset as me and seem to largely consist of racist pensioners.

Cattenberg

I wonder how many of them there are?

How weird. I just typed about my MP, scrolled back and saw this!

Hi to everyone in a safe seat I would say keep on voting because everything changes in time. Am in a seat where historically Tory for 100 years where they weighed the vote :-) and this time it is a winnable marginal for the Lib Dem’s! (Who by the way to a previous poster have explicitly ruled out pact with tories and are not asking for more austerity ). Nothing is forever and every vote moves the dial a little. And this time in a complex 4 way battle national vote shares will also matter to signal views on brexit and beyond

I wish people would vote for the party not the person (Corbyn). It matters.

I think in this case the party has gone down a path a don't agree with and that sleekit wanker has let it/encouraged it to happen - the power is in the wrong hands They have a long way to go imo to get anywhere near close to where I'd want to vote for them again.

Tbh, i've been trying to ignore it all now as it makes me depressed.

I live in a Tory safe seat. People could put a blue rosette on a lamppost and they’d vote for it. I’m really hoping that as we are a remain area and he has been voting leave with government policy despite being sacked from the cabinet by Johnson,
he might just lose some of his majority. (Conservatives lost our town council and my town’s seats in the district but that was mainly down to local issues.) Unfortunately he is a career politician and won’t let anything stand in the way of that. But the other parties don’t really campaign here because it just isn’t worth their time.

I agree Wax it makes me depressed also.

As an addendum to our MP... he is a fervent Leaver despite our constituency being Remain. No hope of getting him out, and that makes me depressed too.

I think we live in the same place @havingtochangeusernameagain. Dispiriting, isn’t it?

I am unconvinced that there are any safe seats this time round. I think a lot of people will be voting differently from their usual inclination depending on their view of Brexit/Boris/omnishambles. So I don't think anyone should try to vote tactically, because that could easily backfire.

Yanbu. I live in a safe Tory seat. ERG member. Backbencher. MP kicked out of the Tory party conference for bad behaviour (Cotswold).

The thing is, overall the constituency votes remain. Although it’s been a safe seat, it’s also clear that a very large chunk of the population will view the MP’s Brexit activities critically, and another chunk will be dismayed by his behaviour at the party conference. So perhaps there won’t be a change in MP, perhaps that’s too much, but at least there’s a chance, and there’s an even bigger chance the seat will become marginal. We have some decent Lib Dem councillors so there is some hope.

Just want to sympathise drivinmecrazy I must live quite close as I'm stuck with Cleverley too
I agree it's very frustrating goodness knows who I'll vote for (previously labour but now not so much) but ultimately it won't matter here.

Im in a safe Labour seat and my MP is sensible and well liked. It means I end up voting Labour because of her which belies the fact I disagree with jezza and think hes the worst leader Labour have ever had. I flirt with lib dem but it doesn't matter much.

I hate the Tories and find it hard to understand why ordinary sensible people vote for such a shower of self interested useless bastards that have laid waste to the country.

We need PR.