[bouncer]

Well do you?

And who for

(I think everyone in the UK should vote SNP )

[INSOMANiAC]

I dont vote, partially through laziness and partially through ignorance.
I find it's a good combination.

[Mep]

Originally Posted by INSOMANiAC

I dont vote, partially through laziness and partially through ignorance.
I find it's a good combination.

the latter trait doesn't stop most!

[INSOMANiAC]

Ive just taken the ultra simplistic view that it ultimately doesnt matter because the said party will do whatever they please regardless of their manifestos and policies. Only when I see Hitler-the sequel gaining any kind of following will I bother to vote against. Even then I could be voting for a complete buffoon, its a lottery !

[overkill]

I always vote. However, I wasn't aware there were any English elections this year? Council elections were last year weren't they?

[INSOMANiAC]

Well dont sit on the fence, who do you vote for ? and more importantly, why do some folk insist on keeping it secret? my theory goes back to days of violence on voting days but these days it all seems a bit silly.

[overkill]

Originally Posted by INSOMANiAC

Ive just taken the ultra simplistic view that it ultimately doesnt matter because the said party will do whatever they please regardless of their manifestos and policies. Only when I see Hitler-the sequel gaining any kind of following will I bother to vote against. Even then I could be voting for a complete buffoon, its a lottery !

No-one does 'exactly as they please'. In fact the first Tory (79') and New Labour govts (87') of the last set out and achieved exactly what they put forward in their manifestos. Where the rot starts is when the incoming govt realises that the situation isn't what they thought, and the senior civil servants, erm' 'put them right'. The permanent under-secretary is the biggest obstacle to 'public demands' in English political history.

They also tend to 'wing it' once they win anything more than two terms. They've usually run out of ideas by then.

[INSOMANiAC]

So you're labour then....

[Steve.J.Davies]

Haven't voted for ages which my disgrace. This year that changes !

I will be voting for for whoever cancel the TollTax and ID cards.

If they bin the NHS IT humungous c*ck-up as well then they are a shoe in !

People should vote, look what type of government our collective apathy has brought us.

[overkill]

Originally Posted by INSOMANiAC

Well dont sit on the fence, who do you vote for ? and more importantly, why do some folk insist on keeping it secret? my theory goes back to days of violence on voting days but these days it all seems a bit silly.

It's because politics is seen as yet another 'taboo' subject in this country. Like the 's' word it's another throwback to the Victorian era, where certain things 'weren't discussed' in polite company. These being the 'S' word, Religion, Politics, and Money.

When you compare our society with say, France, where all of those are openly discussed, in public, often quite heatedly, but unlike us not ending in a row, it just shows how screwed up we still are.

[overkill]

Originally Posted by Steve.J.Davies

Haven't voted for ages which my disgrace. This year that changes !

I will be voting for for whoever cancel the TollTax and ID cards.

If they bin the NHS IT humungous c*ck-up as well then they are a shoe in !

People should vote, look what type of government our collective apathy has brought us.

We should vote, but apathy changes nothing. We've had some pretty shocking govts voted in by huge turnouts.

All apathy does is encourage the 'middle of the road', aimed only at 'middle England' policies we've had since 1987'. Now if you want to change that, then I'm all for it. Going on recent opinion polls we don't.

Why Bin the NHS? You want private medicine? No thanks.

[la gran siete]

As always I shall vote LABOUR. Actually I lived in horsham I would votre Conservative as they have done a pretty good job there. Here they are complete pants mind. They have no vision and nothing changes. Worthing is ripe for some innovative changes which admittedly means extra spending and unfortunateley most people here are a bunch of stick in the muds who will resist anything. The sort who object to the London Olympics

[pixelated]

Originally Posted by overkill

No-one does 'exactly as they please'.

Well said.

[dejongj]

I'd vote if 1) there were elections , and 2) I was allowed to vote

It definitely would not be labour; bunch of self enriching, no clue what their job is, who they are representing and who is paying their wages......But I guess the majority who pay relatively little will still vote for their incompetent leaders....

[Praxidike]

I always vote for the guys that'll never win, so what's the point?

[Ian J]

I voted for Mark Ramprakash but didn't realise that the next series had started already.

[chriszzzzzz]

I do vote but, am becoming more and more concerned that there is no clear choice. They all blur into the same mess. Local elections should have no party involvement whatsoever. Just x amounts of independents with a genuine want to improve the local areas. Never happen I know but worth a mention.
The next election I shall vote for..............................Not this lot anyway.... but am still undecided.

[la gran siete]

if I could find a reasonable alternative I would but thgere isnt so its Labiour again for me. I think Brown will do ok as PM as he has don a pretty good job at number 11.low inflation low interste rates low unemployment economy stable etc. I certainly wouldnt want the Tories to make a pigs ear of that as they did the last time.
Local election are different ok but if one was to see the clowns we have here they'd be give their marching orders What gets me is nothing ever changes.We have the same useless assembly hall which should be replaced with a state of the art one we can be proud of , a decent indoor swimming pool, and for Gods sake replace that blasted travelling fair with something more modern

[GBDG1]

I'll be voting in the next election, as a politics student specializing in UK elections I really should.

I personally have no problems with the Labour government, I didn't agree with Iraq but I think that any party would have taken us to war. The Lib dems have some interesting policies but have no chance of winning and I've never considered voting conservative.

I suppose I might vote Lib Dem, I've been writing a dissertation on them for the past 4-5 months and so I know quite abit about them. They've become abit like the friendly local homeless person you occasionally throw a 20p at, despite the knowledge that they'll only **** it away.

[emporer]

I never vote, whoever is in govt will always shaft you, simple really. How anyone could trust Yogi Blair and his party of halfwits is beyond me. Look at how the country has turned out since 97, every second person is a flippin eastern european, I pay more taxes than ever, crime is shocking, nhs is knackered etc etc. This country is awful under Labour. They have created a culture where they want lots of people on benefits etc which is just a big vote bank for them, but the results are that due to this we have single parent families and teenage slappers pretending to be mothers and it all ends in broken families and thus the offspring end up commiting the awful crimes we see every day, take all these recent stabbings, most of the people involved are of broken homes/single parents etc all probably on benefits. Labour may like the idea as its votes in the bag for them but what they create in the process is destruction. Working families and the general family unit has been torn to shreds by labour and means nothing these days. If I could i'd have the whole govt hung, strung, drawn and quartered!!

[Steve.J.Davies]

Originally Posted by overkill

Why Bin the NHS? You want private medicine? No thanks.

Good grief no - It is the huge NHS IT system they building at enormous cost that the practitioners don't want (and were not consulted on really) for needs that do not exist. Needless to say the system is already late, over budget and failing to deliver. it is doomed but it was a T.Blair special so no one will pull the plug. One of its premises is a central database of peoples detailed medical records (which according the government you have implicitly opted into already) that will be accessible to over 250,000 NHS staff. already the project is under pressure from outside agencies for access - such as councils, police, researchers and 'others'.

the given reason for the database is along the line of :- if your auntie ethel is visiting family 50 miles away her records will be available there so if her dodgy hip plays up the medicos there can have access to her info. not only is the percentage occurrence of this issue only a tiny percent of cases (and so not worth the 12 billion plus and counting it is costing us) your local doctors and hospitals already have communication methods that work for this such as the phone, email, fax.
With this system your GP will no longer sit in guard of your records...

Could write lots of IT reasons why the project is cack but that has already been done by some of the leading IT academics in the country.
The Eye comprehensively took it apart in a recent issue also.

I am pro NHS (I am also pro clean hospitals and no fiddling for targets).

[FruitBat]

I didn't vote, but maybe I should have. That's a definite nul points for the UK this year. They might as well have gone with "My Lovely Horse".

[Decadence]

I won't vote until they create a "None of the above" box to tick.