An alarmingly politically aware friend recently encouraged me to use a website called Political Compass. This is a really rather interesting website which, having answered a few questions about your general attitudes, informs you whether you seem to be left or right wing economically and libertarian or authoritarian. I found myself a left wing libertarian, in the excellent company of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dali Lama. I felt most privileged! Not that I was particularly surprised. I'm well aware of being both left wing (an inevitable consequence of reading the Independent) and libertarian (an almost inevitable consequence of being a student). Given that all 3 mainstream parties are judged as the exact opposite (right wing, authoritarian) then my voting dilemma is perhaps explained. This is my first voting election (I was 18 in November) and my parents are rather amused by the fact that I'm taking it 'seriously'. I imagine that it goes with a first vote, but if I am being 'serious' about it then I hope it continues with elections long after this one. I have thought about being all scientific and drawing up a list of positives and negatives for each party. However the thought doesn't really appeal - seriousness clearly stops somewhere! So I'll just give a few thoughts about each party - beginning with the Conservatives. And frankly the big negative here is that my parents vote for them. Which naturally puts me off. Also the fact that the rest of the constituency votes for them (Ryedale is the sort of Conservative seat that is so safe, it would remain standing on only one of its true blue legs
). However to be fair it's not just that that puts me off - I have some serious reservations about their policies. It seems to me that although they win the gold medal for criticising the government, their policies don't seem any different, if they make sense at all that is. Take MRSA for example. Michael Howard takes every opportunity to point out that this is a personal issue and using his deceased mother-in-law to prove it. And his solution? Well I'm not really sure! Some vague idea about having nurses overseeing cleaning. Which I'm sure would have its merits if we weren't so short of nurses. Perhaps just increasing the number of cleaners would help. And their wages too while we're at it. Which makes it a little ironic that the Conservatives want to bring in tougher immigration quotas, when immigrants are often the only ones prepared to take such unpleasant, underpaid work. Which brings me to another point - immigration. This is something I find very difficult to get worked up about, given that this area is really not affected by it at all. However, I can see in some areas that it's a very real problem which requires discussion. But surely not at every press conference. Repeatedly. Almost to the detriment of everything else. In my opinion it seems dangerously close to playing on people's prejudices, and that's not what you want or expect from a main stream party. And on top of this I have big issues with the Conservative solution to tuition fees - to charge commercial interest rates on student loans. This seems to suggest that students from lower income families on longer courses will be penalised. Let's face it, after a 6 year medical course almost everyone has had to take out a loan at some stage. And after 6 years plus interest it's not going to be paid off until you're ready to retire! Also on a purely personal level Michael Howard gives me the creeps! However, to give him his due, I think he would stick to his policies if he was elected. And also in the Conservatives favour they do still, in my opinion, stand for the type of right wing policies that to varying degrees they always have done. Which brings me to Labour. As more a more left wing voter, I find it rather unnerving that the traditional workers party seems most of the time to be as right wing as the Conservatives. For a Labour party to introduce top up fees and foundation hospitals seems rather paradoxical. I'm also strongly against some of their policies, particularly the anti-terror legislation which allows terror suspects (yes, and that could mean you) to be put under house arrest without trial or even knowing what they are alleged to have done. The 'innocent until proven guilty' principle is far too important to just be bypassed like that. I don't care how much danger the country is in, a small number of individuals having the legal power to imprison anyone they see fit is far more dangerous in the long term. Personally this affects how I view our future under Labour far more than the war in Iraq, which everyone assumes is a popular bugbear amongst students. I'm still not sure whether to go to war was the right decision or not. I automatically think not, however now isn't the time to debate it (this is getting a little long as it is). The sheer fact that Labour were prepared to go to war when the country were apparently against it certainly suggests a definite disregard for the voters. However I can't help thinking though that the war should not dominate election thinking - I personally view current policies as more important and I think we owe it to the servicemen in Iraq to give them our support, whether the war was right or not. And to be fair I do support some of Labour policies, particularly (perhaps unusually) their attitude to top up fees. I don't like parting with my money any more than the next Yorkshireman, but our universities are badly under funded, and without something doing urgently all that will happen is that there will be fewer home places as universities take more overseas students to make up their money. Just as financially troubled Oxford plan to do. Or departments will just shut altogether. Personally, as a prospective medic, I feel that as I will be making an important contribution to my country in the future then the least they can do is pay my fees. But the same could be said of many degrees, and if paying £3000 a year is what it takes to ensure the university I attend stays as one of the best in the country, if not the world, then I am prepared to do that. Of course, the Liberal Democrat policy to abolish tuition fees sounds very attractive, like most of their policies. However whether they are achievable is quite another matter. The fact that nothing short of a miracle would get Charles Kennedy into No. 10 does suggest that his policies are more to attract votes than actually be carried out. However, whether they are achievable or not they are certainly the most attractive to me. Increase the top tax rate to raise more money for the government, free eye tests (paying for those is a favourite moan of mine
) etc. They also interestingly want to save money by scraping the Department of Trade and Industry. Which does beg the question, 'what does it actually do?' Also, could I really vote for a man who calls his first born son Donald?! So after all that all I really want to say is that I'm undecided! Apart from not Conservative. And as another red vote in Ryedale would barely even turn it a vague shade of purple, then it will probably be Lib Dem. Apparently I will also have the choice of a UKIP candidate, but as I refuse to go anywhere near anything that has ever had anything whatsoever to do with Robert Kilroy-Silk (urgh) then they are out! Although to be fair I have no idea what they plan to do on a local level, or what any other party wants to do locally come to that. I have had no literature through my door and if it does eventually arrive I suspect it will contain nothing affecting me at all, although I may be surprised. Anyway, all I can say to end is to vote. Whoever you vote for just make sure you do. It's important and it affects us all. Even if it may seem not to have changed anything in the past, we don't know what it would be like now if those people who voted then had chosen not to.
Ann
Could you be a student diarist?
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