Should you vote tactically?

If we had a form of PR, this question wouldn't arise. Given what we have, in some seats, voting tactically may allow us some say in who is actually elected. It could be argued that this gives us a bit more democracy. I certainly have a preference list of how I would vote if it mattered but sadly it doesn't where I live. In a city nearby, the LDs have sometimes won the seat so if I lived there I would vote LD as sometimes what matters most is who you don't get

Just stick with what you truly feel or you could regret doing anything other.

Same here, ginny

Posted too soon !

At the moment my thinking is on the lines of; do I vote for the party that gradually seems to be getting us out of a mess. Or, the party that got us into it .

I would never vote tactically. Surely one should vote for the party one believes will do the best job. Admittedly , a difficult decision !

Good heavens that would never do!

rosesarered

Ain't that the truth.

good post POGS, but I realise that not everyone feels that way.Having read the posts on the manifesto threads,some people think their own party says all wonderful things/promises are great, and all the other parties are making terrible promises and I feel that surely we should admit, that we like some promises and not others even those of the party we support?
it seems childish to do otherwise.

Good heavens I wish the comment made by sillyoldfool was the worst I have ever seen or indeed experienced.

Voting tactically is grubby politics, especially if you have been told to do so.

It verges on hatred and I wouldn't/couldn't throw away my principle of voting for the candidate/party I believe to be the best.

You are dismissing your chosen candidate as a loser, a no hoper and not given him/her a chance to know what support he/she did actually have. I feel sorry for them which ever party they belong to. They didn't win but they didn't loose fair and square either! Hopeless situation and totally demoralising I should imagine.

As mentioned by annodomini: Labour told others to vote tactically , vote for the LibDem candidate to keep the Tories out. They did and the Lib Dem won. He then turned out to obviously be better than the Labour candidates and stayed in place for 18 years. Now nobody knows how much Labour votes gave him 'the win' but if it did have any bearing at all it was keep Labour out too. Irony!

It doesn't matter a damn who I vote for, the Tories here know they can't lose and everyone else knows they can't win.
I'm sick of the Jam Tomorrow promises of all the parties. If they can give so much once elected, why haven't they given it already? I don't believe a word any politician says.

To be fair, SillyOldFool didn't actually say that anyone who voted Labour had no brain, just that he/she couldn't understand how anyone who has a brain would vote Labour.

Agreed Teetime that was a rather offensive remark sillyoldfool. This is a discussion forum, we try to be tolerant of each other's views, with varying degrees of success. How offended would you be if I said that anyone who voted Conservative is selfish, deluded and should be ashamed of themselves eh? Try to keep it polite.

I have to take issue with sillyoldfool I do consider myself to have a brain with several pieces f paper from major academic organisations to back that claim up and I continue to vote Labour. Have you considered renaming yourself rudeoldfool?

Shame you are not in the Wyre Forest, Mishap. The link I gave earlier shows that the same percentage of constituents voted for other parties than for the Tory winner. That's because one of them was the candidate for the NHA, who wants to save the NHS.

The sudden emergence of a proposed policy which would please every single voter in the UK? Pigs etc...

But if I vote for the party I want to get in, the party I don't want will get in - so effectively I will have voted for him!

So it is no good saying just vote for the party you want.

Well, glad that I made somebody's day!
We have a whole month to get through, so anything can happen(sudden asteroid hitting the earth?)

Our MP was Gordon Brown and he is not standing so it is possible that we could go SNP. Not sure whether to stick to my principles, which is always a 'wasted' vote here, or to vote tactically for the first time ever for Labour - not sure I could do that.....

That goes to all politician from all parties

No matter how you vote it makes no difference, they promise the earth and deliver a door step

They blatantly lie and get away with it every time

Agreed whitewave. Labour, Libdem and SNP are the only grouping that could form a majority.

Oh rose you have made my day! I do hope you are right about Labour. I dread the Tories getting back in.

Why do iPads always alter words, it is so annoying!

Agree POGS, that's exactly how we should vote, for the candidate we want, and not tactically.I would like to see the Conservatives and Lib Dems back in power together, iit may or may not happen, but I would always vote for the party I wanted in power and not otherwise.It's going to be a very close election again, and If I had to put money on it, I would say that Labour would win and they will go into power with the Lib Dems, but you never know, and polls don't always tell the whole story.

We live in a marginal so will not be voting tactically my party needs all the votes it can get!!

PS if I lived in Brighton proper I would probably vote Green!