Have you been a swing voter?

[NJOK]

If so, can you explain how you decide who to vote for? Do you look at the parties' manifestos and see which one you agree with? And assuming they remain broadly the same over time, how do your views on the rights and wrongs of governing change from one election to the next?

Let's say you're left-leaning. Labour have failed to live up to your expectations in the last 10 years, but their priorities and values (social justice, taxation of those most able to affford it for the benefit of the neediest via public services, constitutional reform) are still the closest match to your own, among the major parties.

Even if you believed that the Tories could live up to their manifesto, you wouldn't vote for them because your oppose what they stand for. Or would you, for the sake of change?

How can you register your disappointment with Labour while keeping the Tories out? Or do people not have views on the way the country should be run? Is it just a question of voting for personalities?

[naomi24]

I'm not a swing voter as such because I voted Labour all my life until the last election when I voted Conservative. Even though in many ways it went against the grain, I absolutely detest this government and I'm appalled by what they've done to this country. However, the problem in voting for something other than Labour or Conservative means votes go to minority parties who haven't a hope of winning an election, and hence the chances of Labour sneaking in again by the back door are heightened. David Cameron and Co are a pretty sad option, but if we really want to see the back of this abysmal bunch, what choice do we have? One thing is for sure - I will never vote Labour again, and I don't know anyone who will.

[mightywease]

I too have been a labour voter all my life - 'old' labour I suppose I should say being a bit of a liberal leftie - but now I really don't know what to do. I don't not want to vote, if that makes sense, because I have always believed passionately that people should exercise a freedom i.e. being able to vote, that has been fought for and that a lot of people in this world sadly still don't have to right to do.

In my area we have a really very good Lib-Dem MP who has done a lot for the local community and I would have no problem with voting for him personally but I would rather vote Lib-Dem for local elections and look at the wider national issues for a general election otherwise we get into the 'my backyards okay, don't care about yours' situation.

I just despair of the political situation in this country at the moment and also despair of the apathy it is creating, in the country, in me and in most people I know. Another belief of mine is that one should always attempt to change things even if it seems the attempt may be futile. To try is better than not to attempt. But now I don't even know how or what to try.

It is just all so depressing

[NJOK]

Guys, I share your disillusion.

So what I'm asking I think is, what is it that makes you change your political stance?

For example, what was it about Labour, naomi, that made you ever vote for them? And why has that viewpoint changed? How do you go from leaning left to right - isn't that a shift in your whole outlook on the way the country should be run?

Or was it never about their ideology? Is it a gut insticnt towards the personalities involved?

[mightywease]

From my point of view I don't think my political stance - or I think of it more in terms of my social and at times moral stance i.e. what I would prefer for the country, the populace etc.. - has changed but the party who best represented my ideas and ideals i.e. the Labour Party, has and I am not sure where to look now.

Also I am one of those people who was carried along by the optimism and bouyancy of '97 thinking that once we got the Tories out things would improve. I suppose I was blinkered into just wanting the Tories out at all costs.

I don't think I have been ever swayed by personality - though there are politicians of all parties who I prefer and admire for various reasons - but I fear I may be too dogmatic in my ideaology.

[naomi24]

I've never voted for personalities and my political beliefs haven't changed. However, the political parties have, and neither the Labour Party nor the Conservatives now stand for what they once did. I was never a militant leftie but I voted Labour because they cared about the working man, they valued a strong sense of justice and fairness, and they instigated the finest welfare system in the world - and I've always believed that society should take care of those unable to care for themselves. I was dancing with joy when Labour ousted the Tories in 97, truly believing that we were entering a new and a better era. "Things can only get better", they told us, and I believed them. How wrong I was. Since then I've watched this country hurtle into the abyss and it infuriates me. The pathetic health service where money which should be spent on employing front line staff, sufficient cleaners and a few bottles of disinfectant, now goes to incompetent managers; the abysmal education system with people leaving school unable to read and write; the welfare system that encourages scroungers not to work and hands out money and housing to all except those who need and deserve it; out-of-control immigration, nonsensical political correctness, the Human Rights Act that only seems to work for criminals and foreigners, constant petty interference into citizens' everyday lives, thousands more ridiculous laws, more and more stealth taxes, the appalling waste of resources, the war, the lies and the fact that Big Brother appears to be very much upon us.

[naomi24]

I truly hate this government and I will never, ever vote Labour again. If my father, a Desert Rat, a lifelong Labour voter and proud of his country, could see it now he'd be devastated, and rightly so. What did he fight for - and what is there to be proud of any more? Nothing that I can see, and it breaks my heart. I had a first class state education at a excellent grammar school which opened the world up to me and gave me every opportunity, and until this government came to power I felt safe when I went into hospital, I knew the police were my friends and I knew that justice would be done in the courts, but that doesn't apply any more. This isn't my country and this government is not working for the silent majority of honest, hardworking people here. In fact, honest, hardworking people are the lowest on the list. I'm not quite sure what this government's aim is, or where this monstrous mess they've created will end, and quite frankly, I dread to think!

Bet you regret asking now, NJOK. Sorry - but, boy, did I enjoy that!!

[NJOK]

Very good answers.

Without wanting to sound all worthy, I do alright for myself so I vote for a party that will take care of the poorest and most vulnerable in the community.

Labour has let me down there.

But obviously voting Tory would harm those people even more. That's the problem.

Because while they're pledging not to make headline spending cuts (in school, prisons, police, army, hospitals), they're making it plain that they'll be cutting back on the spending that falls below the politcal radar: tax credits, social workers, children's centres (for those unable to afford nurseries), Connexions (the teenage advice scheme), Supporting People (special home help for the elderly), bringing council housing up to Decent Homes standard, Access To Work and Pathways to Work (heard of them? They help a quarter of a million disabled and incapcitated workers back to work with one-to-one help), New Deal (has already helped 1.5 million young, old, disabled and lone parents back to work), Education Maintenance Allowances to pay for books and travel to keep the poorest kids at school etc.

This isn't bigging up Labour. It pains me to see them stupidly winning trying to win votes by lurching rightwards. What we want is for them to be the Labour party that they said they were going to be.

If only there was a credible party to their left. Because voting Tory would be like complaining that Robin Hood has been a letdown (which in this analogy he has) and then replacing him with the Sheriff of Nottingham. God, it makes you want to cry.

[naomi24]

NJOK, I know exactly what you're saying. We do alright for ourselves too - and although my reasons for voting Labour for so many years was because I wanted to do my best for those less well situated, sad to say my Labour voting days are definitely over. The effect this government has had on this country in ten short years and the fact that there is no real credible opposition makes me want to cry with you..

[mightywease]

NJOK and Naomi you have articulated exactly how I feel.

I have also voted Labour because I thought they would best serve the interests of most vunerable and less well off (I mean in terms of opportunities, services etc.. as well as financially) and because I had seen a climate of greed and selfishness grow under the Tory government and which had marked out my formative years (I was 13 when the Tories came to power in '79) and wanted that to change.

That hasn't happened, I think there is still an undercurrent of selfishness and disregard for others in this country, and I feel betrayed by what Labour have done, or haven't done!

My only hope is that there are people like us still around who are looking for a better way - even if we are not sure where to look. So in a sense this thread has heartened me. I was begining to feel that a lot of people were becoming past caring, but they are not and I'll take that as a positive!

[naomi24]

The really sad thing is that I believe Labour will soon cease supporting a welfare state altogether. NHS dentists are practically non-existent, and we're already hearing of certain sections of society being refused hospital treatment. If Labour are given free rein in another term of office, I wonder where it will all end? Personally, I'm not prepared to give them the opportunity to do more damage. I've seen enough.

[NJOK]

It's between a rock and a hard place... and something else.

Vote Labour and suffer more letdown.
Vote Tory and you're a heartless **** who stiffs his fellow man.
Vote for someone else and you waste a vote.

It's enough to make you want to defecate in the ballot box.

[Colmc54]

My method is to look on BBC news every day to see if the pound is rising or falling and whether the FTSE is rising or falling.

It's pretty much as simple as that. The two indices give you the advantage of the wisdom of thousands of minds all focused on the same thing, and thus the FTSE and the £ are rarely wrong, however much us mortals are made to suffer as a result.

[Colmc54]

The Conservative party is the party that I have voted for most of my adult life. The reason is that they have saved our country from bankruptcy twice in my lifetime.

Obviously the history is more complicated than that. However I would suggest you try to get an idea of how many millions of jobs were driven out of this country by the TUC/Labour (they're joined at the hip) destruction of British manufacturing.

The UK will become bankrupt within the next century because we will be unable to afford to borrow enough to pay for the ever-burgeoning cost of the welfare state while our population is rising arguably exponentially. What happens next is a kind of Haiti-style Darwinian, survival of the nastiest nightmare.

Consistently throughout my life it has only been the Conservative party that has given me the impression that they were in touch with the reality of what is really importantly going on in the world.

But the public service unions will still strike for more money and pensions and thus higher taxes even when we have seen so many UK companies like Dyson jump ship to the far east.

Labour really has been shown to be the party of unemployment and benefit dependency. They punish the industrious and reward the hypochondriacs and the idle.

Take your pick!