pogoism

Whoa… Have a watch.

My music taste is having a bad week.

Ah, election time.

For the first time this year, I get to vote in a general election. The Voter Power Index let’s you put in your postcode, and by working out the possible swing in your constituency, tells you how much your vote is worth. My home constituency is Maidstone and the Weald, a big Conservative stronghold, and my vote here is worth 0.044 votes, i.e., it’s ultra safe for the Conservatives. However, I spend about 49 weeks of the year in Belfast South, and my vote here is worth 1.077 votes, giving me 4.26 times more voting power than the rest of the UK. It’s actually ranked 4th out of all 650 seats in the index. The SDLP currently hold this seat, but the area is very marginal.

So, armed with that, I decided to change my vote to Belfast South. However, I really don’t know who to vote for…

Politics in Northern Ireland, as I’m sure you’re aware is *very* different to the rest of the UK. The main political parties don’t usually contest seats here (this year being an exception, with the Conservatives and the UUP getting together to form the Conservatives and Unionist Party). The Liberal Democrats have a de facto agreement with the Alliance Party. The current SDLP MP for Belfast South takes the Labour whip, albeit under very loose terms.

My choices this year in Belfast South are:

• Conservatives and Unionists (Paula Bradshaw)
• Alliance (Anna Lo)
• Social Democrat and Labour Party (Alasdair McDonnell)
• Green (NI) (Adam McGibbon)
• Sinn Fein (Alex Maskey)
• Democratic Unionist (Jimmy Spratt)

Now, for me, this causes a dilemma. Despite being politically more inclined towards the Alliance Party or the Greens, I’m frankly reluctant to vote for them. Of the remaining parties, the most socially liberal are the SDLP and Sinn Fein, whereas the more conservative are the Conservatives and Unionist and the Democratic Unionists. However, the SDLP and Sinn Fein, are, of course, nationalist parties, and the Unionist parties are, obviously, Unionist.

I do not consider myself aligned to either the Unionists or Nationalists, indeed, I’d rather stay out of it completely, but I do have some reservations about voting for a nationalist party at the minute, especially since Ireland’s economy has suffered so badly from the global economic downturn.

Hmm… I dunno. At least I have another few weeks to make up my mind…

I love this song…

(And if you think it sound’s familiar, you probably recognise it from this ad at the cinema)

Dear blog,

I’m sorry for abandoning you, but I’ve been really busy, and frankly I haven’t done anything remotely worthy of a blog post.

However, I have some fun things planned for the summer, so normal service will resume soon.

Until then, toodle-pip!

x