Vote locally or nationally?

[156leaks]

When you vote at a General Election, what is more important to you?

Local issues, and the views of the candidate that will represent you, or the national picture?

Do you vote for the candidate, or the party?

[afterforty]

Thanks for setting up this board, I wish it well!

As to the question, well IMHO the answer has to be "it depends". It depends first of all on whether or not your vote will make any difference, and in most constituencies it doesn't make even one jot of difference.

Interestingly in this election, in Rother Valley, this may not be the case.

It is fair to assume that the Tories will win the election nationally - and no matter who one vote for, it is not going to have one iota of impact on that. The local picture is very different, a strongish swing away from Labour could mean the return of a non-Labour MP for Rother Valley, and my vote would influence that swing. So this time round, I go local.

[156leaks]

Hi - thanks - I need to start posting more if I'm going to get anywhere, but as ever, life gets in the way!

I think you're probably right about a Tory government, although I'm not ruling out a hung parliament and lots of power for the Lib Dems yet - maybe not such a bad thing for South Yorkshire with Nick Clegg being the leader.

I need to look into the boundary changes more deeply though - do you have a link showing what they actually are?

Should make for an interesting election here anyway, if the incumbent can be bothered to fight it - he is remarkably low-profile - I don't know if that is arrogance, complacency or just keeping his head down though.

[afterforty]

Re: Boundary changes, you could try this link- ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/about-notional-results

There is also a page on that site with a constituency profile for Rother Valley - with a comments section.

Mr Barron is keeping a very low profile!