Who Should I Vote For?
Who Should You Vote For? has been garnering a lot of attention the last couple of days, in the sort of gentle, five-minute-distraction way that you'd expect.
But all political "What kind of biscuit is my ideal girlfriend?" quizzes suffer from the same problem. Asked how I think we should balance the economy, run a fair and effective education system and provide free healthcare for 61 million people, my instinct is to feign a migraine and go and have a lie down. I try to keep as politically well-informed as possible, but that just makes me aware of how little clue I have about what we should do about anything. I suspect that if people weren't so inclined to assume their opinion is always the best one, this would be the majority view.
To me, voting for the party that best fits my ill-informed reckons seems like picking the doctor most likely to tell me my headaches really are that brain tumour I've been worrying about. The last thing I want is for Parliament to do exactly what I would do if I were in charge. If I were in charge I'd bum everything up. I can barely butter a slice of toast without ruining the NHS and causing at least two major diplomatic incidents.
I don't want to choose leaders based on what they'll do; I want to choose them based on why they'll do it. That's a matter of principles, of course, and that's a well-established political line. It's also a demand for evidence-based policy – one of those phrases that sounds very clever until you think about the alternative. I don't have time to work out how to save the economy, straighten out democracy, stop climate change and make the NHS work. That's what politicians are for.
Unfortunately, this split doesn't run so clearly across party lines, and it's much harder to judge from policies and manifestos – you can reach any position irrationally. I'll try to work out who I can trust in all sorts of ways – in between plotting complicated graphs about tactical voting, judging my local candidates' haircuts and coming to terms with the fact my vote won't make any difference – but Who Should You Vote For? will just have me supporting a party who looks for their mobile while they're talking on it and tries to put cereal away in the fridge.
April 11th, 2010 - 14:07
I agree completely.
According to the “Which Party Leader Are You?” game I tried, the Greens and Labour best represent my guesses (at least on a deeply ironic ‘first past the post’ system where the second best policy in each area of government gets zero points) but even if all my guesses are bang on it’s a terrible basis for voting.
I think Labour have done a lot of great stuff since 1997, but they’ve also done some unforgivably nasty stuff and I have huge moral reservations about voting for them on a pragmatic ‘forget button’ basis. Whereas I’ve no particular reason to doubt the Greens’ honesty or liberal credentials but every reason to doubt their grip on reality.
I’d rather vote for the second best policy if it’s more likely to be properly implemented. But on the other hand, at least voting by quiz is probably better than voting by mindless allegiance or aimless protest.