I look forward to a hanged parliament.

The vast majority of voters vote for a party rather than for an individual. Whilst I want my MP to have a degree of independence I wouldnt want an MP who relies on the support of the party to gain election and then completely ignores the party's manifesto once elected.

Thats what I would like to turn on its head - you can still have the political party's with their manifesto's (or sales leaflets as I prefer) but your MP should be free to speak out and to vote according to his/her constituency guidance - maybe it would even involve more in communicating with their MP ?

Just to give two examples I have this morning listened to IDS refuse to discuss where his proposed £10bn worth of welfare cuts are going to be applied in the next term, he even denied that he had any targets in mind and insisted that nothing would be decided or announced until AFTER the elections, this was followed by Lucy Powell (Labour) stating that they would not have a budget to work with until "they had seen the books", in other words both of the major party's in this election are not being honest in their sales pitches and are expecting us to believe that they won't make any decisions on any project or expenditure until they form a government - despite this they are all making sweeping promises of what they will do in order to win your vote, in fact ONLY to win your vote, we all know what happens to policies when a hung parliament looms, they are the first thing to go in the shredder.

Can you honestly say that you'd prefer a system of sales pitches of vague promises versus a person who will actually represent the constituency in which you and they both live ?

It's always going to be hard to get large scale electoral backing for a minor party to grow. The first past the post electoral system is heavily weighted to the 2 main parties.

That said I expect UKIP to get an handful of seats on about 10% of the vote with reasonable numbers of second places in a few Northern Labour seats. I expect them to have a bigger impact longer term.

Did see Lucy Powell interview on Daily Politics this morning? Very cringe-worthy. She just couldn't come up with a credible plan for deficit reduction. I can only assume under Labour we as a country will continue to run a deficit till the IMF are called in.

For me, the economy is the most important factor in my decision making process and the Conservatives are by far the most competent.

Lucy Powell MP was on Sunday Politics today and argued that Labour have a three pronged way of clearing the deficit.

1. 'Fair taxes' - whatever that means. She did admit that one tax rise was to re-introduce the 50p tax rate which best estimates state would bring in £2BN

2. Cuts. She was vague about this and only mentioned a few things, winter fuel allowance, ministerial salaries and capping child benefit at 1% rises. Any savings from these would be minuscule.

3. Higher Wages etc. Then there was some general chatter about ensuring people are paid more to increase the tax take. The usual sound bites about zero hours contracts were trotted out. But she said they would not be abolished.

Then at the end she admitted that there would be more borrowing to the tune of £30BN to fund investment.

I just don't see how Labour have a credible plan to deal with the deficit and the economy.

You should have been watching an hour earlier when IDS was interviewed live by Andrew Marr, he too had no apparent idea of how he would save his targeted £12bn in benefits savings, or at least that was the party line that he had to toe - you could see where his tongue was bleeding from all the biting he was having to do while Marr kept insisting that he must at least have some idea of where the target would be achieved.

Basically in the first Sunday of the election campaign (even though it doesn't start until tomorrow) both the Tories and Labour have refused to give any detail on ANY policy, this is like buying a car and all that the dealer will say is "Its a blue one".

I can sympathise that they don't want to actually go into great detail about [iactual[/i cuts. By its very nature will upset some group of voters which you don't want to do before an election.

But I have more confidence that a conservative government will actually make the necessary cuts and take the difficult decisions rather than Labour who will say they will cut now but when it comes to it and they have the power, they will back out and borrowing and the deficit will spiral.

Neither party will come clean on their deficit reduction plans, they never do.

As at the last election, Labour has the most realistic target for reducing the deficit, the Tories' target is unrealistic. However the Tories are more likely to hit Labour's target than are Labour. Labour cannot achieve its target simply through taxing the rich. Eventually they will have to come up with some cuts that will hurt. But it will take at least two years of internal wrangling and bitter opposition within the party before they can actually start to implement them.

Quite simply there is no debt! There is an intangible concept that people really get upset about but to date the "money " hasn't been seen, just numbers in computers and on prices of paper. To keep people " happy " there are paper and metal representations of Pounds sterling, Euro's and Dollars etc, but to date no one has ever seen them.
A bit like these deity things people chunter on about.
Capitalism and double entry book keeping, the greates ponzi scheme, perpetrated by the human race.

Something for nothing, magic really

Well it looks like I'll be voting for Left Unity - the only anti-austerity party standing in my area.

Not really. A currency is only worth what both the buyer and seller agree it's worth. Therefore, in reality, all money/currency is intangible and are merely represented by coins, notes, bank accounts or whatever is being bartered.

Unless you think we should all, and by all I mean every single one of us, should grow or farm the food we individually need to eat and make the tools we need to survive then there will need to be currency of one form or another. You can go that way if you like but I'd suggest it's not actually a step forward in society.

Far better to wait until after everyone's made their decision and upset them then.

"OK OK, I'll have the blue car. What do you mean there's no engine?"

The most bizarre outcome could be that neither Labour or the Tories will want to form a government. Cameron and Miliband will be to desparate to do a deal in order to keep their job. But behind the scenes there could be more greater reluctance to form what might be a very unstable government. Perhaps better to stay in opposition, change the leader and position the party for the second election. If you were Yvette Cooper or Theresa May, wouldnt that be a more appealing prospect?

It could be a case of "After you". "No, after you"

Yvette Cooper - are you serious? One of Brown's bullies, despised by most at Westminster!!

I've always voted Labour and I've chosen Labour on here, but I have toyed with the idea of voting for the Greens. I don't entirely agree with their stance on energy (I'm pro fracking for example), but other than that their policies are probably the closest to what I believe in.

However the reality is that it's as good as a spoiled ballot and whilst Labour aren't much to shout about they are the only party with a chance of ousting the Tories.

That said I won't lose any sleep regardless of who wins. Unless it's UKIP, in which case I'm moving as far away from this country as possible.

Party politics really doesn't work does it. I'm University educated, I have a Masters, I've worked for some big companies over the past 15 years. Do I consider myself to know enough to make a rational judgement about who to vote for? Can I decipher the myriad of playground jibes and propaganda? Can I balls, I'm as ignorant as everyone else. So how can most people know enough to vote? The truth is they don't. Most have a default colour. Be it Blue, Red or Yellow, they feel they 'should' vote for that party because of their upbringing and the bias imposed by it. They can spew off a list of stereotyped default positions for each party to suit their argument. The Conservatives abuse the poor and working class and destroy/privatise the NHS and help the rich or reward success depending where you stand, Labour stand up for the working class and keep the NHS magnificent and free or reward lazy unemployment as a career. Can they actually list three main policies the party they are voting for are going with this time? Can they reconcile their own beliefs on the welfare state, the economy, taxation or immigration with the most suitable vote? The majority don't even try. So what does voting for a party prove? I voted blue in the poll, if nothing else purely because I've had an argument tonight with the in laws about how their views on how Labour would solve the financial crisis by putting it back to what is was before the Conservatives got in. No real logic behind it, they just would as they are like Robin Hood and they'd take all the money back from the bankers and Pakistanis/Polish that had come and taken it over the last 5 years.

Why are you pro-fracking? Which areas of the country do you feel it would appropriate for? How would you dispose of the waste water?

If someone like you can't understand and decide how to vote, what hope for the rest of us?

Give over. Any person as educated as you are can educate themselves on the issues of the day and form a view, if they want to.

Unfortunately a lot of people are lazy and so listen to headlines taking them as the gospel truth. The spin doctors have worked this out and have long since realised slinging mud even if it is completely untrue works because mud sticks and subsequent denials by the other party are lost in the fog.

If you are telling me you can't spot tactics such as this I don't believe you. If you are not prepared yourself to see if there is any truth behind the headlines/spin that is your problem but the idea you can not "decipher the myriad of playground jibes and propaganda" doesn't wash.

If your incumbent is Conservative or Lib Dem you place more stock in what they do locally then how they vote on issues such as the bedroom tax and privatising the NHS?

Do you not think the fact he may have organised a bus pass for a pensioner pales into insignificance if he voted for the Bedrooms tax for example?

Why wouldn't an MP from a different party be equally effective locally but vote in parliament more in tune with your general views on wider issues?

In my area we have Tory MP. He came out in support of us when we campaigned against the local Tory council imposing transportation costs for disabled children to school post 16.

It still went ahead and if I were a cynic I'd say he knew it would and so could indulge in a bit of populism at zero cost to his parties position locally. Why would I say that? Well because I looked at his voting record in parliament and he has not once rebelled against or even spoken against any socially regressive legislation imposed by the government.

And that shows you are not voting for a local councillor but an MP.

An MP whose votes in parliament will affect you more than anything they do on a local level. Even in the unlikely event he votes against a government of his party because the policy would be bad locally it won't make a jot of difference because his will be the party of government and it will therefore have the majority to overrule his wishes. I am sure it will look good locally just as my MP's actions looked good but that is all it would be. Window dressing.

As I said you are not voting for a local councillor but an MP and if you want to make a reasoned judgement about who to vote for and not one based on tribal party loyalty then look at their voting record in the House and what the party he belongs to stands for.

If you do that and he is a Tory or Lib Dem I honestly can't see how you could vote for them if you have one iota of social conscience given what has happened to the disabled and disadvantage over the past five years regardless of what he has done locally.

Well that's my point, people are too lazy, myself included. It's not easy to interpret what each party is going for in terms of their approach to the big policies this time, none of the parties are going into any real depth about them. Try it out, ask a couple of people who they are voting for, then ask them why, most won't know. Most people who aren't too lazy are too busy, which supports my point. A huge percentage of those voting won't really know why or understand what they are voting for on each key issue. The parties at the moment are doing very little to get their policies across to the people, fuelling the switch off most people have around politics. People care about policies but are not being given anything to get engaged by. Huge sums are spent on branding, marketing and PR and I'd bet most people haven't a clue what is going on.

We've had the discussion before and I know you are passionate about the party political system that currently exists so I sort of expected your post



The incumbent that we have has proved his worth in working for local and national issues, in fact he was one of two MP's (the other was a Labour MP) who on the second to last day of parliament saw a bill of theirs passed into law (pub fair/market rents) which is by any reckoning a national concern and not bad at all for a back bench proposal.

Anyway, the Labrador puppy in this house has just eaten the Labour candidates newsletter this morning so I still don't know what his name is

I'm pro fracking firstly for selfish reasons. I work for a company that would benefit massively from fracking. Indeed we are in the middle of a project that will see us ship liquid ethane from the states because it's much cheaper than using North Sea gas.

The plant I used to work on shut down last year because we couldn't compete with the U.S., China etc. Their production costs are tiny compared to ours. Unless someone finds a cheaper and more sustainable fuel source, industry will continue to die in this country.

Is it the perfect solution? Probably not, there are certainly risks involved, but there's always a safe way of doing things. You hear horror stories in America, but their standards are pretty slack to say the least, and much of it is scaremongering anyway.

What I am passionate about is people voting from an informed position (hence my other reply to this thread) as to what is likely to happen if they vote for a particular party (because that is what you really are voting for) should that party gain power because despite whatever pet single issue registers with some people, you can damn well guarantee they will be affected a lot more by what any government does in power over many other issues.

I am pretty sure for those that follow politics think Charles Walker, the chairman of the procedure committee who rebelled against the governments attempt to change rules for voting for the Speaker on the last day seems a bit if a hero for voting against the government and for his speech but if you look at his voting record he has supported every nasty policy going. Hope he loses his seat!

You really are not voting for your MP but for a party and that parties policies on many issues so whatever good your MP has done on the one issue you mentioned if he is Tory or Lib dem he needs to be removed!