If you’re worried that this is going to be some sort of political message in favour of one or the other political parties that you’ve got to pick from the the 2015 UK general election, nothing could be further from our valiant intentions. However, we do recognise that there’s a lot of voters out there that will still be on the fence despite the fact that at the time of writing there’s only a few days to go to the election on the 7th May 2015.
The good news though for anyone that hasn’t decided who to vote for is that there are a few ways to help you decide who to put your little cross next to. The first of these is the record for the 2010 results for your constituency so that you can see how close the race is likely to be. The BBC has quite a cool little tool that does just that where you can select any location on a little map of the UK and it will pull up the results, the contenders and the winner of the MP seat, so that you can get a clear picture of how much impact your vote is likely to have. Visit https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/w39.stm.
Once you know the result for the last general election in your constituency you might also want to know a little bit more about what the incumbent MP has been up to over the course of their tenure. This is all about getting an idea about how good a job you think they’ve done in the last five years to help you decide if you’re keen on seeing them continue in the role or you want to sling them out of the seat with the kind of passion you’d ordinarily see in a wresting ring.
They Work For You is the latest new addition to help clear the political minefield of UK government and with its help you’ll be able to see what your MP has voted for during the last government, read debates that they’ve taken part in and written answers that they’ve submitted. It’s much more accessible that it might sound. It presents the information is easy to scan snippets, so you don’t necessarily need to swathe through lengthy debates or answers to get more information on how they voted quickly, but equally there’s a lot more detail below the surface if you want to do more in-depth research. Visit https://www.theyworkforyou.com.
Finally, it’s important to understand where you allegiances lie when it comes to actual policies, but short of reading each of the parties’ manifestos or watching each of the debates and hoping you remember the details you might find it difficult to put it all into perspective. Luckily, there’s another recent addition to help enlighten you called Vote For Policies, which does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.
Essentially, you select the issues that are important for you, answer a number of questions in their survey and out the other end they’ll tell you which party your answers match the most. The time it takes to complete tge survey depends on how many policy issues you select. Each issue you factor in will add five minutes to the time, but it’s a very good wsy of getting sn unbiased view of who you’d vote for in the 2015 general election if you were just looking at policies. To start the survey visit https://voteforpolicies.org.uk.
The only other thing that you might want to do as a last ditch, night before attempt at decision making is to tune into Charlie Brooker’s Election Wipe, for a stick pocking an open saw look at the parties in the run up to the 7th May 2015. It’s on at 9pm on BBC 1 the day before the election.
