Vote for Policies is a website that allows you to compare the policies of political parties on areas that interest you (eg the environment) without being told which party’s they are, and then lets you see which political party is closest to your own view of the world.
I used it in the 2010 general election and thought that it was very good – although some of the results surprised me (I must be a bit more right wing than I think, deep down!).
They are crowd-sourcing to get their website up-and-running and faster and bigger for the next general election.
This blog, I, Mark Avery, would rather you vote Tory than not vote at all – please vote (but please don’t vote UKIP unless you were thinking of voting Tory and then please, half of you, vote UKIP).
Last time the Vote Policies website told me that I was a Labour voter with quite a splash of Green (understandable) and a smidgeon of UKIP (how could that be possible?).
If you help these merry people with their project, as I have done, then you can find out in a fun and secret way how you really should be voting next May. But even if you use a pin – please do vote.
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“I must be a bit more right wing than I think, deep down!”….. and with “…a smidgeon of UKIP….”
Hmmm, let’s see:
White, middle-aged, male from middle-class family who enjoyed a grammar school education and went on to become one of Oxbridge’s gilded youth. Worked at Director level for a ‘corporate’ body with an annual turnover of £100M+ Wife, 2 kids and mortgage paid off – now campaigns vociferously on several ‘right-on’ issues.
Organises peaceful protests, (after consultation with the fascist ‘filth’), at which no right-thinking, left-wing anarchist or direct action enthusiast would be seen dead. No chance of any aggro or class action for the Wombles, Occupy et al there.
Course you are more right wing than you think, deep down. It comes to virtually everyone over the age of 45….and after years of denial in some cases……
Keith – I have no doubt that my politics are way to the left of yours – do you? And that is also what the Vote for Policies website reassuringly told me too.
You missed out: student protestor against apartheid and the BNP, Labour Party member (only since I left the RSPB – or a little before actually), gave up one of the best paid jobs in nature conservation with no job in prospect, puts his own views out there rather than sniping from the wings at others (yes, that seems to be you Keith – when are you going to write that Guest Blog rather than commenting on others?) and turned down offers of big money from industry to provide them with greenwash.
Hmmm – let’s see – we are all complex mixtures of beliefs – some a bit contradictory even. But some stand up for their beliefs and some merely snipe from the sidelines. Which do you think you are Keith?
Thanks for the critique of my life – how many children would you like me to have? Would you rather I weren’t married? If Kicking King hadn’t won the Gold Cup the mortgage might not be paid off. I got into a grammar school because I passed an exam to get in. I got into Cambridge because I passed an exam to get in. I have a PHD (which you didn’t mention) because I worked at it for three years. Do you have a problem with any of that? I worked for the RSPB (which certainly wasn’t £100m pa organisation when I joined it – should I apologise for helping it to grow?) because I wanted to – other, more lucrative, options were available, but I’m glad I didn’t take them.
No, I am probably, despite your characterisation, much more left wing than you think.
Blimey, clearly touched a nerve here – the gentleman doth protest too much, methinks!
“You are welcome to comment on the posts on this blog. Please try to keep more or less to the topic of the blog” and “I really appreciate the comments that do appear here from a variety of sources, views and personalities” and “Thanks for your comments. Please keep them coming.” – Dr Mark Avery – 23rd July 2014.
Why is it then, a mere 2 days later,that you get so charged when I comment, on topic, in a jocular vein? I have clearly overestimated your sense of humour.
Sniping from the sidelines? Please excuse me for not fawning over you and your every utterance and for poking fun at your surprise that you may, deep down, have some ‘right-wing’ leanings. Nurture, not nature Mark.
And well done, for having passed the 11+, and in having passed the Cambridge entrance exam, and in having being selected to study for a PhD. Some folk are born ‘more equal than others’ as that old relapsed ‘leftie’ George Orwell might have put it, in your case by being more academically talented than many of your fellow British citizens.
And what a pity many, many, more academically-gifted, deserving children have not, like you, had the opportunity to have a grammar school education as a launch pad for greater things. Due of course to 1960s-vintage Labour Party, left-wing dogma. If only Labour’s Tony Crosland ( “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fxxxing grammar school in England. And Wales. And Northern Ireland” ) and others of his coterie of ‘champagne socialists’ hadn’t decided to abolish Grammar schools, then many more deserving, academically-gifted children may have had access to a better education, and not seen their talents stifled in ‘bog-standard’ comprehensives, (to quote a previous Labour Prime Minister’s official spokesman).
Interesting to hear that your flutter on the horses helped you clear your mortgage. How many horses died in the race meeting that was providing you with both entertainment – and in this instance, financial reward – that year? I note that in the following year, 11 horses died. Is supporting, encouraging and promoting such a ‘sport’ worth that price do you think? Here’s what your latest new ‘cause’, the League Against Cruel Sports, thinks of National Hunt Racing – http://tinyurl.com/nepcnw9
So you marched against apartheid and the BNP as a student – well done! I expect that I was chasing Russian nuclear bombers around our North Sea oil and gas installations and the north coast of Scotland at the time, or patrolling the Inner German Border deterring potential Soviet and Warsaw Pact aggression, or patrolling the Falkland Islands deterring further Argentinian aggression. (Now those were real fascists Mark, armed and dangerous, not your tame BNP variety! Filbert has it spot on when he notes that extremists are all the same). Sniping from the sidelines’ as opposed to ‘standing up for your beliefs’ and all that.
So you turned down offers of big money from industry, and more lucrative options, to stick with one of the highest paid jobs in conservation – well done! Sadly, no one was making me more lucrative offers when I was scurrying around dodging Saddam’s ‘Scud’ missiles, or being rocketed by the Taleban – you know, sniping from the sidelines as opposed to standing up for my beliefs. I suppose helping enforce UN Security Council Resolutions during conflict is pretty minor stuff compared with being a much sought after, big cheese in a British NGO.
Wonder who was more gainfully employed?
Finally, why are you so obsessed with me writing a guest blog? I notice you haven’t (openly) offered many other of your regularish contributors the opportunity to write a guest blog – John Miles, Trimbush, Jonathan Wallace, Dennis Ames, Filbert Cobb, Kie, Paul V Irving & Lazywell to name but a few. Why not? Why me?
As I have said here before, I quite enjoy reading the blog for a bit of light relief. It is often entertaining, often educational, sometimes irritating – bit like any other written media, and I am happy to Comment on it in a personal capacity. Equally happy to cease if that is what you would like.
I may or may not get round to writing a guest blog someday, in my day job capacity, but it remains nowhere near the top half of my pretty extensive ‘to do’ list, and I am far too busy at this time of year – ‘birding with a purpose’ as you so aptly termed it, in my spare time – and having a life.
Keith – the offer of a Guest Blog is open to all – as has been said many times before. But you, as the leader of a conservation organisation have written more words than most here. It’s time for you to say what you believe in, rather than, as I say, sniping from the sidelines.
I took the political compass survey which gives you an indication of left/right liberal/authoritarian view.
I came out centre and very liberal in which no parties currently sit since lib dems moved in with lab/con area. Though I still vote lib dems I would love to see them take a more radical view or things like drugs/church state separation and house of lords reforms.
Odd but interesting I came out Lib dems/green yet I’ve been an anti religion socialist all my life ( although I voted green in the euro elections). I will not vote Lib Dem, not after getting into bed with the bloody Tories and lying about tuition fees. For the record male, white, middle aged, grammar school and university educated, divorced no children, supported anti apartheid movement, CND, anti nuclear power and pro miners strike. Old enough to have been anti Vietnam war (still not all that keen on American foreign policy.)
I still maintain the political spectrum is not linear, but circular. In this way all extremists inhabit the same unspeakably vile space, somewhere round the back.
Vote Green
The only logical choice for conservationists and people with a social conscience.
They take climate change, alternative energy and social equity seriously, and are much less likely that Labour to cause untold death and destruction in the middle east while carrying out policies that are so right wig they’d make Margaret Thatcher blush.
Labour are just another party of big business now, treating the everyday person awfully.
well the last 4 years aside I would say lib dems are much more closer to conscious tory vote than green (though I have huge respect for green party)
Where the lib dems went wrong was being part of every department in gov. should have just had 1 like education or health to call their own and not get lumped in with every policy.
The pragmatist has to vote strategically in the UK though due to 1st past the post, in my area its a tight race between tory & lib dem and that’s a no brainier for me.