Consider this before voting…

[Ourfuturetheirfuture]

We are in a unique and dangerous time in history. We are potentially on the cusp of a world war and climate chaos has started and will get worse. Children are growing up in poverty, public services that we rely on are struggling. There is much that needs attention to give us safety, stability and better life chances.

Today we are choosing who we want to lead us through the dangerous seas ahead and to try and improve our lives.

AIBU to ask you to consider;

Reflecting on your reasons for voting one way or another? Is it driven by feelings or facts? Is it a knee jerk decision based on a headline or a carefully thought choice based on research or somewhere inbetween?

Reminding yourself that the way to solve, minimise or survive the above issues will be complex and slow so anyone promising one quick solution is lying.

Russia are trying to create division and instability and are using SM to do this. Many politicians resort to whipping up fear, anger or other emotions to get you to vote for them. Look out for any information that looks too good to be true or seems to be trying to make you angry - consider fact checking it.

If you are thinking of voting for a party as a protest vote then please reconsider. Your voice is unlikely to be heard and you will still have to live with any consequences. Spoiling your paper is better than voting in a party you don’t really want at the helm.

Checking that it’s your head and not your heart making the decision.

Working class men, and then women, all fought a long hard battle to give everyone the chance to vote. Democracy is a great thing and we all have a duty to use it responsibly, especially now as we all stand at this particularly perilous point in history.

I know IAB a bit U posting this here as it’s not really an AIBU but I’m hoping I’m forgiven. Long time poster (darked on washing, Mexican house thief are in my memory bank). I’m not a Russian bot and I did my postal vote already. I’m a mum and worried about the future. I want the best for us all.

Happy voting day everyone whoever you decide to vote on. I’m so glad we all get a chance to. 😊

I’d argue we probably live in one of the least dangerous times in history tbh.

The world always has its complications.

I still haven't made up my mind !

I honestly have no faith in anyone and do feel the weight of responsibility for voting 'well', but just can't feel a pull towards anyone or any party.

I see very little difference between Cons/lab/libdems.

I'll be voting for the Party of Women.

Yes, I agree at the moment but ‘I see trouble aheeead’ (singing to try and make it light hearted but actually really quite worried).

Nope, just vote against Reform.

In all honesty things have been much MUCH WORSE

That's not to say oh things are great. But the constant coatastophising is so waring!!!

Everything's a cycle, we have always had misinformation of the media, people get it sooner now via social media
We have had fear of Russia before

These patronising posts need to stop.

Yes. No party quite fit the bill fully for me. I voted for the party that had the best policy for the things that matter most to me, and had a chance of getting in. I had to let some things go. It’s a toughie. I’m glad you feel like I do about the weight of it as sometimes it feels like some politicians and media see it as a game. Good luck with your deliberations.

We’re doomed Mr Mannering, doomed!

I am not wanting to get into the who or which but I’m glad you found the right party for you.

I must have been living under a stone. What's the Party of Women?

Will that be an option on ballot papers today?

I don’t believe we are in a unique and dangerous time in history. I was born during the Cold War. Nowadays if I didn’t watch 24hr news or social media, all I’d notice is more potholes, poverty and boarded up shops, but I wouldn’t sense we were under any particular threat.

I also vehemently disagree with spoiling your ballot. It doesn’t get counted, it makes no difference, shows no protest, sends no message, only person who sees it is the counter before it gets chucked.

https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/

@Laiste this page allows you to input your postcode and shows all candidates in your area

I see a lot of difference.

Im a biological woman, I don’t feel threatened by what others think they are. I do feel threatened on behalf of the younger generation being told national service will be reinstated by one party and I do feel that the poor and disabled need my support more than women in general

I dont agree with everything but when does that happen you have to just pick the party you are most aligned with not completely aligned with

I'm voting tactically today.

Cheers Keir 😇

Apologies if you find it patronising. I agree that in comparison to other times in history we live in pretty calm times. But in my voting life time I don’t think there has ever been quite so much riding on it.

There was the ‘cold war’ and poverty and poor public services but not the threat of another WW and certainly climate change was a dim and distant threat rather than something already causing increases in mortality and disease. I feel a weight of responsibility this election way more than previous ones (I’ve been voting for over 30 years).

Well, if you think we are effectively electing a war leader we are pretty much fucked. None of them seems to have much in the way of spine.

I've had to turn how I was thinking about voting around, as I was completely unable to find who best represented me. I was seriously considering spoiling my ballot for the first time ever.

I've carefully considered how I will feel if either of the 2 possibles here win. So I'm voting against A, rather than for B. I don't like it much, but it's the best of a bad job I think.

Agreed

Ha ha ha. Yes. I do feel a bit like that. But as I’ve posted above, in my 30 years of voting, this one has weighed a lot heavier on me due to the threat of WWIII (which experts have said is a definite possibility and you might say we are already in it) and climate change (again scientific consensus) so my feeling of concern regarding my DCs future are not irrational and my feeling that the choice of Government to see us through the next year is a serious one is not completely out there. Is it?

Where's a Monster Raving Loony when you need one?

Count Binface's manifesto includes the deeply silly, but I think I agree with more of it than those of other parties.......

There’s nobody standing in my constituency that I can vote for.

I’m very politically engaged, and wrote to my Labour candidate asking for his assurance that he’ll protect women’s safe spaces. He didn’t reply.

I won’t vote Green or Lib Dem because of their stance on this matter, and hell will freeze over before I vote Conservative, after the last 14 years.

There’s an independent candidate, whose campaign literature says she’s standing as an ‘Independant’, so she’s out. She doesn’t mention the impact of the GRC on biological women either.

So, I’m not voting. I don’t exist anyway, according to the likely winners, so I doubt it matters.

Quite gutted today.

Well, that’s true. None of them fill me with confidence in that respect. I went with the least imperfect option in my eyes.

I can't get on board with this "on the precipice of armageddon" thing at all.

Having lived through the second half of the Cold War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iran/Iraq proxy war, various US interventions in Central America and the Middle East, the bombing of Libya, absolute mayhem in North Africa a few years ago, constant Israeli excursions into Lebanon, Isis causing mayhem in Syria and Iraq, Russian intervention in Syria, umpteen localised conflicts in the Caucasus, civil war and genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Zimbabwean bush wars, Angolan civil war, conflict in Sierra Leone, the Falklands fiasco, Rwandan genocide, Idi Amin, Che Guevara, the fact North Korea is still threatening to turn Seoul into a sheet of glass every couple of minutes, Pakistan and India waving nukes at each other, and sundry other squabbles and bun fights, the fact Putin has invaded Ukraine just feels like yet more of the same old, and I don't feel any where near as frightened about what comes next as I did in the 80's when the entirety of the Warsaw Pact was threatening to steamroll everything from Berlin to the Bay of Biscay.

YABU to think that a post like the OP would influence anyone's vote, especially from a stranger. Some people will agree with you, others won't, others will agree in part, but I don't think anyone at all will change the way they were intending to vote, or make their mind up if they were undecided because of a post like that.

YU also BU to think that this is a 'unique and dangerous' time in history, except insofar as every time is unique (unless you believe in a cyclical universe) and dangerous. Have you not studied history at all?

YABU to write in such a patronising tone to other adults.

And finally, YABU to claim as though it were a fact that a protest vote is a waste of a vote and that spoiling your paper would be preferable. That very much depends on the individual constituency dynamics and which party the protest vote is for.

So, all in all: yes, YABU to post this. And not just because it's a fake IABU.