Hearts and Minds 1: Vote for what you believe in

That's what we all would like to do.

Vote according to our beliefs, confident in the knowledge that we then get our fair say in how we are governed.  

But that simple ideal is currently polluted by fears of our votes not counting, a desire than X shouldn't win, overwhelming the desire to vote for the real preference, etc.  

The Greens sister party in England and Wales ran with a strap line on their literature that seemed to resonate :

Vote for Policies: Scotland

But realistically, people vote on impressions of parties, history, family associations, knowledge of individual candidates (but not half as much as most candidates believe!), and all kinds of other things.  Few sit down and do a line by line comparision of policy.


But there is help.  They aren't by any means perfect but sites like Vote for Policies and Vote Match try to advise individual voters how in a blind (ish!) comparision of their stated preferences match up with parties. 

Now it could just be that Greens are rather more inclined to complete such surveys that other parties - or it could be that there is a genuine wish to see a shift away from the neo-liberal concensus that seems to be breaking apart anyway.

The more detailed analysis of surveyed people's choices by topic is very interesting indeed.  

Vote for Policies: Issues

Across a range of topics, Greens have a strong showing and Greens or SNP are the most preferred party on every topic.  If - and on some issues (fracking?) - it is a big if, Green and SNP co-operated with each other on issues, arguing out differences, would we really have a government that reflected our collective heart and mind?

It's a thought. 

Part 2: Gaming PR?  discusses how we could help make that a reality.