Today / tomorrow are the decision days, if you haven’t already made up your mind on who to vote for in the General Election.
VentnorBlog‘s done what it can do to provide the information to help you make your choice for who will represent the best interests for the Island for the next term (usually four years).
We’ve brought you the 500-word manifesto and at the other extreme, a bite-sized version of their manifestos in 100 letters or less.
The Democracy Club Candidate Q&A
Next, we’re bringing you their views on three local issues and fifteen National issues.
They’ll state a summary of how they feel about each subject – strongly agree; agree; neutral; disagree; strongly disagree – and can, if they wished to, provide extra comments on their decisions.
It’s all been organised nationally by The Democracy Club, a collection of 6,000+ volunteers around the UK, who, through democratic means, selected the questions. Well done to all of those involved with it.
The idea behind The Democracy Club was so everyone would be able to make a like-for-like comparison between candidates – and so if they were to be elected, their actual performance could be mapped against their pre-election stated intentions.
A similar idea behind The Straight Choice.
Anyone candidates missing?
Short answer – Yes, including a surprising one.
The site automatically wrote to all of the eleven candidates and following that, people (including VB) wrote to the candidates encouraging them to answer the questions.
Three people haven’t answered – Geof Clynch (British National Party), Edward Corby (Independent) and Andrew Turner (Conservative Party).
Two of those aren’t surprising – Edward Corby and Geof Clynch don’t have email addresses.
Andrew Turner didn’t respond
We’re surprised that the Island’s current MP, Andrew Turner, didn’t respond. Perhaps it’s Conservative central-office policy, as a piece by the BBC about The Democracy Club said,
But only 6% of Tory candidates have given answers, and club spokesman Seb Bacon said they were “apparently very reluctant” to take part.
It’s a great shame that he hasn’t taken part, as VB readers and users of The Democracy Club won’t know where he stands on these important local and National issues.
