Are you voting for 'the person' or the national policies?

[keyboardingtoday]

As of right now I'm still an undecided voter but I'm shortly about to walk to the Polling station and hope I get some clarity on the way.

Question...as you choose your vote, are you voting with your local candidate in mind and what they will or won't do locally or are you voting for the overall national policies of the party?

My local candidates don't fill me with much confidence and one of them didn't even turn up to a hustings that all the other candidates attended. But maybe I need to adjust my thinking and go for the party who, overall, has the national policies that I can support, rather than worry about the local candidates? Hhhmm!

I’m voting against the policies of other parties, namely labour and the fact that they don’t know what a woman is.

I'm also still fairly undecided. But I think I will be voting tactically which will mean holding my nose and voting for a party I don't particularly agree with all their policies and if it wasn't a tactical vote I wouldn't be voting for.

I'd love to vote for a strong local candidate but we don't have one. We have a bunch of swivel-eyes right wing nutters (Heritage Party, anyone?), an almost completely absent incumbent who takes zero interest in local issues, and some others who haven't bothered to campaign. I'm voting Lib Dem purely in the hope that they can get rid of the incumbent and then keeping my fingers crossed that they are capable of cross-party cooperation with whoever is in power.

National policies.

I prefer the other person. I think he is calmer, less petty and more able to represent the uk on an international level.

But I think who ever wins my area will be in opposition anyway.

Mixed feelings here. I voted tactically and against my heart so as to help get the local MP out. He's a fucking pig at the trough and I'd have voted for a chimpanzee before I'd keep him in by not voting at all.

I’m voting labour to bring kinder, gentler politics back into the mainstream, but I just so happen to really like Kier Starmer too. I think he is a great orator and a very charismatic man.

I always liked the idea of the thought of voting for the person, especially when I've heard of people talking about their wonderful independents.

I don't have any independent candidates and I really dislike the person whose party my values align closely with. Go figure.

I'm swithering on tactical which means voting for a party who are believe the opposite of my 2 most important values to try to get rid of the incumbent party who are worse.

Or voting for the party who I most closely align with it won't make any difference.

For the record, I get a postal vote and I've been swithering so long that I'll need to take it into the polling station today 🙄

The person. Incumbent Labour MP who helped us out in the past when we were having trouble with the LA and DS's school.

Also the boundary has changed and the tactical voting website says it's 50/50 between Labour and Conservatives and I definitely don't want Conservatives. I'm not convinced totally about Labour, but I like my MP. Mostly I agree with Lib Dems apart from their stance on women's rights.

I voted against a candidate by choosing the one out of the other 5 who would likely win. A change is needed in my constituency.

I quite like this idea of 'holding my nose' as I vote. I'm leaning towards one party based on national policies but then some of their local candidates are quite obnoxious. That's what's left me in a state of indecision. So perhaps it's a 'hold your nose' vote despite not agreeing with everything the particular party stands for.

Leaving for the polling station shortly...!

Voting nationally for the party whose history and manifesto aligns most closely with my ethics and hopes. I also respect the leader for what he's achieved in his life and done for society.

If our local useless, absent MP gets the boot as a result that will be a happy bonus.

I'm voting nationally

I think the majority of people feel this way. Labour may take their win as an endorsement of their policies, but I think there will be a substantial portion of voters who were voting against the Tories rather than for anything else.
Anyway, we need a new broom and tbh I don't really care whose (as long as not Reform).

Help me, also undecided!

Im not a fan of any of them but my strongest issue is untreated sewage discharge into waterways - absolutely criminal. My limited research says labour would be the best bet, thoughts please? I’ve never had this amount of uncertainty before and was seriously considering not voting at all.

Local candidate who is an excellent, experienced representative and also very responsive.

This and we have a new young Labour candidate who is local and really positive

Person. My local MP is really good and has a lot of experience in the job. They will be a key member of the opposition.

@RenaissanceBaby the sewage scandal has been eye opening but the increased monitoring of the CSOs is what has shined a light on it. Unless Labour commit to make water companies dig up every road and separate sewers and water pipes that are attached to every building it will continue. In not for profit water companies in Wales and Scotland it is just as bad. I think Labour have over promised with their "missions" (decarbonising the grid by 2030, stop the boats, GB Energy cutting your bills by £300 - it's an investment company not an energy provider, 6500 new teachers (from where?), and investment in the NHS PFI round 2, to name a few) and have set themselves up to disappoint us when they under deliver. Wales NHS and education are in a worse state than in England where Labour have been in charge for 25 yrs. But they are not the conservatives so that will be enough for most people.

Local vote for an excellent candidate. None of the National parties represent me, I’m massively disillusioned with the state of UK politics and feel politically homeless. Luckily we have an excellent local guy who works super hard for the area in which I live - otherwise I genuinely have no idea which bunch of pricks I’d vote for.

I vote on policies generally. It wouldn't bother me if the local candidate was a bit uninspiring, but if I had some sort of moral objections to them, I wouldn't vote for them.

If I was voting for the candidate it would be a very good, local, experienced councillor, Lib Dem- but I think as a national party they are a disaster and I'm not going to vote for my own erasure as a woman.

So I'm voting SDP. Don't agree with all their policies - but I don't agree with all of the policies of any party 🤷‍♀️. They are sound on women's rights though and that's the issue which swings it for me - partly because of how they come to policy decisions too - no cult like demands of toeing a party line... I hope they begin to do well.

Bit of both, but not in the sense policy matters to outcome.

Local MP is excellent in a representative manner, so I'll continue to endorse him as long as he wants to stand. Party policy isn't important when the party stands in less than 10% of available seats and has no designs on Government or Opposition, but it is for the purpose of voicing a specific set of views. It's a strange feeling when a UK-wide General Election is actually of secondary importance to another, but there you go, yet another of the multitude of vagaries that are part and parcel of a senseless "voluntary" union which is no such thing.

National.

Our local MP is a raging antisemite but I trust Starmer to take a sensible view of Israel.

In my case both, I want a Labour government and our Labour candidate seems amazing, I really like her, she has great relevant experience in the real world and seems both principled and efficient.
However if I didn't like the local candidate I would almost certainly still vote Labour, they would have to be really awful for me to not. I would never vote Conservative however personally amazing their candidate was.

@keyboardingtoday

I was originally voting 'locally' & tactically, but I changed my mind and I'm holding my nose to vote the useless local candidate for my (national) party vote.