I live in Islington North, and I’m in a quandry. Can you help me decide? It’s a tricky decision, and I’m not sure what to do. Islington North is a very safe Labour seat so there’s no tactical vote to be had, I don’t ascribe wholesale to any of the parties’ manifestos, and there are a myriad of competing factors. Here’s the running:
Jeremy Corbyn (Lab, incumbent)
Pros
Corbyn is an excellent constituency MP. He is responsive and personable. We seem to agree on most of the issues I’ve written to him about — primarily civil liberties things. He voted against the Digital Economy Bill. Though Labour, he is an arch-rebel: so I trust him to vote with his conscience rather than his party, most of the time.
Cons
I’ve been looking forward to voting against Labour for quite a long time. ID cards, Blair, wars, etc — Labour haven’t been all bad but they’ve been on the wrong side too often for me. Also, Corbyn is very old labour: a hard left socialist. Though I’ve been grateful for his votes against some of Labour’s worst legislative follies, I suspect we’d disagree more often than not.
Rhodri Jamieson-Ball (Libdem)
Pros
I’ve been very impressed with Clegg over the last month. I think he’s really held his own. If we could vote for a head of state, he’d have my vote in a flash. Unfortunately, though, we can’t. So Jamieson-Ball is my only choice if I want to support them. He’s been a councillor for some years, and is clearly active on lots of local issues. I do think it’s about time someone else had a go — since neither the Conservatives nor Labour are terribly inspiring — and the Liberals seem a natural choice.
Cons
I swing wildly from one extreme to the other with the LibDems. Sometimes I think they’re wonderful (Clegg in the first debate, good civlibs rhetoric) and other times, awful (utterly incompetent web-blocking amendement on the Digital Economy Bill). I do get a general sense that they just aren’t very organised (as I do with the Greens).
The thing that’s annoyed me the most, though, is a graph from this letter delivered last week:
This graph is a lie. The numbers are correct, but they bear almost no relation to the heights of the bars. It gives the impression that Labour and the Liberals are very close in the running. The text is also bigger and more prominent in the Liberals’ bar. I’ve produced a corrected version:
Which tells a rather different story.
If these people can’t even be honest in an election leaflet, why should I trust them to be honest in government? This is leaflet is deliberately designed to deceive people. And I think it’s cost them my vote.
Adrian Berrill-Cox (Con)
Pros
I am very impressed by the Conservatives’ technology policies. They’re saying the right things about the web, reforming procurement and making government IT better. But that’s about it.
Cons
Well. They’re the Tories. I remain to be convinced that “Progressive Conservative” is not a contradiction in terms. I’m not at all convinced by Cameron. Marriage incentives make me want to barf. And, if recent revelations are to be believed, they still shelter a veritable menagerie of homophobes. Not to mention people who still rue the demise of the British Empire. I don’t think they’ve changed much, no matter how hard Cameron has been trying.
Emily Dixon (Green)
Not really a possibility. I would probably vote Green tactically if I was in Brighton Pavillion. But I’m not, and their manifesto continues to contain “mad things”, like totally unworkable emission cuts, the mother of all tax rises and the abolition of nuclear power. No thanks.
Dominic Lennon (UKIP)
Lol. No.
So: what do you think? Very grateful for your thoughts!
I’m a Labour activist, so I’d obviously recommend you vote Labour anyway, but from reading that post I’m genuinely surprised you’re undecided: Jeremy Corbyn is a great MP and, like you said, you agree on a lot of the things that you care about. He’s probably to the left of you economically – he’s to the left of most people economically – but he’s never really going to have the chance to influence economic policy significantly, since that’s very much a front-bench-only matter. On any vote that’s likely to come before parliament, you can be pretty confident he’ll vote the way that you would like him to.
The only other possible vote you seem to be giving any serious consideration to is for the Lib Dems. I’m not as impressed with Clegg as you are, and think the Lib Dems are too much a middle-class party with very little connection to or understanding of working-class or ethnic minority communities. Indeed, as a middle-class liberal myself, I agree with quite a few of their policies on non economic issues. But their leaflets really turn me off too. The worst was in the last European elections, where I was told that in my constituency, it wasn’t worth voting Conservative, since they’d received only X% of the vote in Haringey in the last general election. So that’s 1) using a different sort of election (GE v Euro), 2) using a different constituency (Haringey v all of London, where the Tories actually came first), and worst of all 3) claiming there was no point voting for the Tories in an election held under proportional representation, where every vote counts. For a party whose flagship policy – the one which seems to have gained them a few newspaper endorsements, and quite a lot of my friends’ votes in this election – is PR, I found this really sickening.
You make fair points. I do like Corbyn. And he is a great local MP. But I really don’t want to lend Labour my moral support. If he was standing as an independent, this would be much simpler!
I think it’s a bit limited to just see Jeremy Corbyn simply as ‘the Labour candidate’. If you take any number of issues where the Lib Dems as a party may seem better than Labour, in reality it is difficult to say Rhodri is better than Jeremy.
Say on the war in Iraq. I’m sure Rhodri was opposed to it. But Jeremy didn’t just vote against it, he has probably addressed hundreds of meetings all over the country, facilitated demonstrations by meeting with Scotland Yard, organising EDMs and debates in Parliament. He has been tireless and passionate in his opposition.
The same goes for civil liberties, or university tuition fees, or more council housing, or defending the hospital A&E. He can always be seen chasing across London or the constituency on his bike, on his way to help someone. He doesn’t just vote the right way, he is a community activist… a rare thing in an MP.
Harry, I’m not a Labour acitivist, but I’ve written to Jeremy Corbyn a couple of times about various issues. He’s a fantastic MP, and if you want Labour to change you have to vote for their better MPs as well as hoping some of their bad MPs lose their seats.
He’s a voice of dissent. He voted against the Iraq War, he voted against top-up fees. He’s also more than that – he campaigns positively on a number of issues, not just voting against bad policies. One of the reasons I first wrote to him was about sexual and reproductive health – he signed the Early Day Motion calling DfID to recognise young people as a separate group with specific needs with regards to HIV/Aids policy and statistics (progress is slowly being made on this front).
I don’t want Labour to have the power they’ve had the last 13 years, but I certainly don’t want to lose a good MP just because his party has become unpopular.
Oh, and this might also help you. It’s about the Lib Dems *saving* the Whittington, something they bang on and on about in their many many many leaflets:
Clicky
@B:
I completely agree. As I said, he’s a great constituency MP – no doubt about it. But he is still a Labour candidate and a vote for him is a vote for them — less so than for a party loyal MP, but still true.
@Phil:
Agree with all that too. I’ve been a bit suspicious about LD claims re the Whit as well. Sent a link to this to Rhodri (and tweeted it to Jeremy). I wonder if they’ll visit?
Don’t be confused by the locals being at the same time as the nationals, is my advice.
There are limited things an MP can do locally, besides his powers of persuasion, prestige etc…so perhaps in terms of local issues you are best looking into the council seats.
The Libs are still a little wishy-washy, Clegg’s ‘new politics’ is incredibly dishonest based on the long history of the Libs and the fact they’ve been involved in the same scandals as the others.
Corbyn is a good champion of social causes, but he is little more than a protest MP nationally. He is an old school left Labour man. A fantastic man, there is no discrediting him personally.
However, my parliamentary vote has been shaped by the fact that there is seemingly going to be a Conservative government, whether after a protracted 6 months of hung parliament and then another election, OR winning outright on Thursday. I know from emails that Berrill-Cox, for the Conservatives, is a proper modern Tory; believes firmly in small government (which is spot on for these economic conditions-rather than Corbyn’s brand of socialism) AND is liberal on the key human rights issues like the obvious rights homosexuals should have in parity with heterosexuals. Also, benefiting areas like Islington North massively, there would be 400 000 new vocational places for people who wanted to get stuck into skilled work without neccessarily studying in a lecture theatre for 3+ years.
I’ve seen Rhodri speak to a crowd and was instantly put off by his patronising, school-debating-team style of speaking to people.
I think Mr Berrill-Cox gets my vote. I’m worried about the deficit/national debt and realise that a new branch of Liberal Conservatives are probably a great thing for the country. Cameron won’t let people vote against gay rights, partly because it’s not right to, and partly because it’s just BAD politics!!!
Not at all confused about local vs national. And not really bothered about whether the Whit’s A&E remains open, to be honest — but I *am* bothered by people overstating what they’ve done, or taking more credit than they’re due.
What you say about the Tories seems fair. I completely agree that a liberal economic approach is a good thing. But, as I (almost) said — I’m not really convinced that “liberal conservative” isn’t a contradiction in terms. I’m not convinced that Cameron has really managed to change his party. It might be possible, but not in such a short time. And I suspect that a large portion of the Tory rank and file are just keeping schtum until Cameron’s moved on.
And — frankly — marriage incentives are both offensively stupid and central to Cameron’s approach to tax and “fixing the broken society”. Which, by the by, I don’t agree is broken.
I shall stop there. My brain continues to ramble in circles, not really getting anywhere.
…to which I would merely add that not only are 36 Conservative MP’s retiring to be replaced by new younger, more socially liberal blood, but also a large number of new seats will be taken by new more socially liberal blood in the swing away from Labour.
Good luck deciding who to vote for though, nice to have a genuine choice for the first time in a few elections!
I wouldn’t have too much confidence in the new breed of Conservatives being more socially liberal – a poll of PPCs in target seats for ConservativeHome found one in three still opposed civil partnerships. That’s a bit better than the last batch of MPs, but not much. Adrian Berrill-Cox may well be a social liberal – I presume he’d have to be, to stand in Islington – but a lot of the candidates in the suburbs and the shires are anything but.
If you want to see how socially concerned the Tories are, just look to Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
I’m going to pinch your image of the naughty graph for my blog, by the way. And for my Year 9 data handling lesson tomorrow. Shall link back to source, and so on.
Sounds good — do post a link if the trackback doesn’t come up!
I’d really like to make some noise about the graph, actually. It’s so hard to make anyone care about such things, but so important that they do…
Here it is
So disappointed when I’m quite positive about the Lib Dems nationally, that I just can’t bring myself to vote for them in the locals because they’re being so negative.