We are now nine days into the 2010 election campaign, which so far has been distinguished by its  focus on the economy, and an otherwise limited amount of policy discussion.   The sole piece of scandalous news has been a prospective parliamentary candidate being sacked by the Labour Party for making inappropriate comments on Twitter (http://bit.ly/d7f0Cs) , a move which serves to highlight the growing importance placed on social media channels in the UK.   

This election is different from 2005  because thanks to the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and blogs in general, we (as an electorate) can now take a more personal interest in politics and politicians.  You can follow your local MP on Twitter (find yours here: http://mps.monstermischief.com/) , see what he or she is doing on a daily basis, and even communicate (albeit in a limited manner) with them.   Combine this with an online record of the voting behaviour of MPs (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/), and you have a situation where the ordinary voter can, if they so desire, contemplate the past performance of their MP, liaise with them, and make a very well-informed decision about how to cast their vote on polling day.   

The curious voter can now determine exactly which political party suits them best, by taking the survey on the new “Vote for Policies” website:  www.voteforpolicies.org.uk  Developed for free by a clever bunch of people from Makito Labs and Budcus, this hugely popular website presents policies on a range of issues, leaving you to select the one you like the most, without actually telling you which party each policy relates to.  The results are most intriguing, and the main three parties would do well to pay heed to them.  At the time of writing, based on 90,000 completed surveys, 28.3% of all respondents *should* be voting for the Green Party, the Lib Dems are in second place on 18%, Labour are third with 17%, the Conservatives fourth with 16.2%, while UKIP and the BNP have 10.9% and 9.5% respectively.  Of course this relates purely to the merits of the party policies, but imagine if these trends were reflected on polling day – the Conservatives, currently hot favourites with 39% of the vote (source: Telegraph website), would come a poor fourth, and a Green-Liberal alliance would be the likeliest outcome.  The closest parity is with the Lib Dems, on 16% in the poll, and 18% in the policy stakes, which may suggest that being a newer party, their support is based around individuals who have considered their policies at length, rather than any historical voting patterns or social mobility reasons, which might explain the disparity with the Tories and Labour.  What this website does well is to make you challenge your own preconceptions, and invite you to consider issues on their own merit.  As a tool to encourage abstract thinking it excels – it is simple, clearly designed, and doesn’t try to do too much.  It would be interesting to develop a similar tool for use within government departments, to provide decision-makers with a neutral means of making better-informed choices.  It also highlights the importance of language in presenting ideas.  Some policies are so blunt and lacking in detail as to be off-putting, while others are so wordy and politically correct that they have the same effect.  There is a lesson here not only in content, but in presentation. 

If voters were to base their polling-day decisions on such excellent tools, then we would enter a new era of policy-based voting, which while encouraging people to think about the issues of the day, would sit rather badly with our current First Past The Post system.  Policy-based voting would require a greater number of parties to represent a diverse range of opinions.  The Vote for Policies site currently uses six parties, but we all know that in reality the majority of constituencies in the UK are usually one, two or three-horse races.  A vote for the Green Party in a safe Labour seat may be viewed as being wasted, but it is nonetheless an endorsement of a party and its policies.  With electoral reform on the agenda in the next parliament, it may not be too many years before we can enjoy a system of Proportional Representation, which would accurately reflect the support for the different parties.  For this election, we may see a reduction in so-called “tactical voting”, which seeks to keep a given party out, and a rise in people voting for a party because they approve of their policies.