General Election

[one_step_closer]

Hope this is ok to post and doesn't turn into a fight or something! I know nothing about the different parties etc is there a place where I can get all the info? Does anyone have any useful advice about what parties are doing etc and who to avoid?

I really hope this is ok to post. I feel like it might not be. Feel free to report me!

[Elmer]

There's an account on Instagram and Facebook called Simple Politics. They're really good at providing impartial information about national politics in general, and they've been putting out lots of really helpful and easy to understand breakdowns of manifestos and pledges by each party. There's a lot of information to go through but it may be useful to you. Of course local politics come into it too since obviously you'll be voting for your MP, not just the party that ultimately comes into power - it may be worth looking at any campaign leaflets that have come through your letterbox and also local newspapers, or even your town/city/neighbourhood facebook pages to see if you can get a feel for local candidates that way. I don't know if any of that is helpful, it's just what I've been trying to do :)
There are also debates you can watch, I'm a bit out of the loop with those but they're probably on youtube!

[one_step_closer]

Thanks, Lio. :)

[Auror.]

idk if it is like this in your country, but here there are various nonprofits that release unbiased info about the issues and things, and interviews with candidates where they ask them all the exact same questions. they also provide practice ballots and stuff that you can fill out in advance to take with you if you vote irl.

if we have trouble finding stuff for very local things, one of our ways for deciding about candidates is to look at their endorsements. if organisations that support concepts we disagree with endorse them, then we know it's not one we would likely want and vice versa.

example of this here being if we personally think abortion should be accessible, an endorsement for a group that wants to criminalize abortion means we likely don't want that candidate. but if we see an endorsement from a group that also wants accessible abortion, we know they might be the better choice. there might sometimes be mixed endorsements for one candidate so we kind of do a tally or prioritize things. hopefully that made sense as an example! not trying to argue politics here.

[one_step_closer]

Thanks Camden. There is just so much info out there but I don't know where to get started with it or find out what is important. I really need to make an effort to do some research.

[Auror.]

we have that issue too. so for us it's less about doing research and more about deciding which issues matter the most to us (in a positive or negative way). like which social issues are important to you and which are big there? what is your personal stance on them?

a lot of times here if there are big issues then you can find organisations for the side of the issue you agree with and they will then tell you which candidates they support. then you don't even have to go look each one up individually if you don't want.

it might not be like that there obviously. but that's how we do it versus looking up and nit picking every little thing and trying to spend hours researching topics.

[Pi.R^2]

So I'd maybe start by seeing who you can rule out in your area? So for example in your constituency you have two parties that have very strong and prominent policies relating to Scottish independence (for/against) so I would imagine that a lot of Scottish people would immediately rule out SNP if they were strongly against independence, for example. Here in England, I might automatically rule out the party that is known for particularly extreme right wing views without further investigation.

After that, I'd maybe think about one or two issues you feel particularly strongly about and then you could read the relevant parts of the manifestos of the remaining parties. For me, my priorities are education and trans rights so that's what I would seek out first.

Some people think about tactical voting and you can have a look at this website to see what the current predictions are to see if you might prefer to vote for your second instead of first choice in order to try to keep out a party you really dislike.

If you have a TV license, the BBC has lots of shows relating to the election- Question Time very often has a representative from the SNP as well as the main GB parties (Labour, Conservative etc). There was one episode filmed in Edinburgh I believe which was Scotland specific that might be interesting to watch to see the parties being questioned about their policies.

I hope some of that is vaguely helpful and I've not been too intense!

[Auror.]

yes jenna basically said what we were saying but gave actual relevant examples.

[one_step_closer]

Thank you both.

[Salazar]

This might be useful from the BBC giving a snapshot of the different parties' policies

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxeez8271nvo

There are also sites out there which help you to see who you should vote for if you choose to do so based on their policies. I've linked a couple - but haven't used them personally so can't vouch for how good they are. You might want to try searching independently for others.

You may of course want to vote for someone for a different reason, if so obviously ignore but your OP suggests you'd at least like to know more about the policies.

https://wemakewaves.digital/case-stu...e-for-policies

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

Don't think either of those require any personal details but beware of sites which do ask for personal details such as your email address.

Hope that helps a bit

[one_step_closer]

Thanks. Yesterday the STV News website posted an article about manifestos which was quite easy to follow so I'm more informed now.

[one_step_closer]

And The Masked AMHP has made a video specifically about MH in manifestos if anyone is interested.

Link.