What if we gave up tactical voting?
That means giving up voting to get a party out of government but to get an MP in. So instead of voting for parties to get rid of the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition government, voters would vote for policies and people. Instead of voting with their head, they would be voting with their heart.
If people voted for policies in my constituency, we no longer be the most right-wing seat in the UK. According to Vote For Policies only 17.8% of my fellow constituents would vote conservative and 24.8% would vote the Labour.
In 2010, 57.6% voted for conservatives. This either means that people are either voting with their head or not thinking at all.
If the whole country was to Vote For Policies, we are in for a minority Labour party coalition where Labour would run the government but they would either have different parties as ministers or they would have to ensure that they cooperated with parties for votes on particular policies or legislation.
The only problem with this way of predicting is that we have a voting system where tactical voting is a necessity. If each vote counted as a percentage of seats then minority parties may run the government.
Our voting system in the UK means that we vote for an MP in each constituency when with a Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system every vote would go towards a party and we would lose our personal link to our MP.
Does anyone know their MEP? They are voted for through large constituencies by PR and no one knows who they are. When people vote for a party rather than a person they no longer know who to talk to.
So in our system we are getting voters who are voting out of tactics but we are also getting votes for people. Voters are going to polling stations with a face in their mind of who they want to run their area rather than their country.
This is in itself a tactic. They are voting for their best interests on a local scale.
Yet in a system where we are represented by an MP in our area who is part of a larger national picture, you need to consider larger tactics. If you are living in a marginal seat and don't want the conservatives you may feel safer beating your vote on the Labour party, yet if you are in Scotland voting for the SNP may assure this.
If you vote for the party and not the person, your vote may affect the whole government. But thanks to our system it's all a postcode lottery.
