Do I vote for the candidate, or the party?

[RosiePoseyPudding]

One of our local candidates is fantastic. He's always out in the community, litter picking, clearing graffiti, responds quickly to questions - I'd happily vote for him to be re-elected in a heartbeat.

But he recently defected to a different party. And a vote for that party is, well, bluntly, a wasted vote in the GE.

Do I vote for the candidate that really understands his local area, what is important to local people, and actually gets his hands dirty.. or do I vote tactically?

Tricky isn't it. Of our candidates only a couple are actually "local" people who live in a the constituency- one a Tory..... but he's been head of the local council, is very active in our towns/villages and has a much better grasp I feel of what local people want. How is it possible that the other big party candidates live in completely different places? I don't think it should be allowed....

I was thinking about this. I do think that an advantage of having a candidate from outside your area, is that they may be an influencial name who has been parachuted into a safe seat - they may actually have a bigger impact than a backbencher.

We had a cabinet minister as our MP for a while, and when he got involved in something locally, he really could make a difference at a high level.

It's the age old question isnt' it?

We've now had leaflets come through from labour/tories/lib dem - it was interesting to see the different comms approaches

the tory leaflet was a 4pp A4 "brochure" outlining why the torys are great. Absolutely nothing about what the MP had actually done for this area in the past 10 years he's been in post.

The labour leaflet was literally an A6 single side piece of paper with three bullets points (something like ECONOMY/ HEALTH) and no actual detail

The lib dem, in contrast was 2 sides of A4, full of detail about what they would do to support and protect the constituency and how they plan to improve the local area.

I'm very much leaning towards the one who is going to be active locally and make a difference to local residents

I dont have an actual political party that I always vote for. I vote for the candidate who does the best for us in my area which happens to be lib dem this time. She is tireless.

I have that quandary. Local Tory MP is actually quite good with local issues and is being very active with regards to the National Grid and the pylons, BUT he was a brexiteer and defended one of the disgraced MPs vociferously. I’ve never voted for him. Greens are out given the trans issues, similarly Lib Dem’s.Labour out because of their stance on the Pylons and women’s rights. Obviously Reform is a non starter.
im having a serious think.

I've just sent in my postal vote. I decided on a genuinely local candidate from a party I've never voted for in the past. Both Labour and Tory were people from outside the area who seem to have no links to the constituency. I followed them both on Facebook, and neither had any specific policies/aims for the local area - all they ever did was parrot off the official party policy and post links to their manifestos. I asked both of them what they'd specifically do for the local economy, tourism and jobs, and neither offered anything more than refer me back to their manifesto! There were five candidates in total, and at least two others actually talk about the local issues, what local issues they'd campaign for if elected, etc., and I voted for the one who had the best ideas for the local area development. I'm completely fed up of all the major parties and just wish we could get back to localism being regarded as important. We've had a Tory MP for 14 years and before that a Labour MP for 13 years, none of them showed any interest at all in local matters, until there was a media opportunity. Both lived hundreds of miles away and were parachuted in by their respective parties.

20 miles away, across the county border, they have a genuinely local MP who is literally everywhere in the constituency, very active locally, lots of small success stories challenging the local councils, often seen at events like carnivals, rallies, etc. As he's fairly local, I also follow him on Facebook and I'm on various local Facebook groups in his area too (I used to work and live there). He is extremely popular and gets things done on a local level. He represents a political party I've never previously voted for, but it's the one I've voted for this time. They seem to have better local representation and I think that's becoming more and more important, especially out in the regions like we are as we need representation by people who understand regional problems rather than being obsessed with London and other big cities.