Last night, I joined around 300 people at the Wyvern for the South Swindon (SS) hustings. The chair (Editor of the Adver) asked if anyone was undecided in the audience, and I was one of a minority to put their hands up.  I am still undecided, but it was a very helpful evening.  All that follows is just my opinion on the evening, but I’m not trying to be independent, so no apologies for that.  Apologies however if I do have any facts wrong, I haven’t particularly checked them, so this may be my perception of the facts.

Questions ranged from local buses to Trident, and gave the candidates a good opportunity to show their local knowledge and represent the position of their parties.

Lib Dems (LD), Conservative (C), Labour (L), Greens (G) and UKIP were represented, and each gave a 2 minute speech at the beginning.  C, L and G were all well-rehearsed and fitted nicely into the two mins, with C and L using a hand held mic instead of the lectern.  L came across as energetic and confident, C as self-assured and local, G as idealistic (to use her own word) and enthusiastic (despite being quite ill).  LD struggled a bit, listing some of the LD achievements in coalition, but it didn’t seem like his heart was really in it, and throughout the evening he often ploughed his own furrow (e.g. on Trident). UKIP spoke about his experience as Deputy Chief Executive of Swindon Council.

From my personal point of view, I am choosing between C, L and G.  I think the LD are a spent force, they have had their time in Government, and I don’t entirely see the point in voting for them at all, and this is particularly true in SS.  The UKIP candidate is also standing as a local councillor in my ward, which I thought was interesting, as it did reflect the little chance of winning.  I am also very unlikely to vote UKIP in general, as I believe lots of their policies are designed to foster resentment of different people.  And leaving the EU would be bonkers.

SS is very marginal between C and L, and having had a few chats with the two candidates I think there is little to choose between them as individuals – both seem very enthusiastic and committed, both have experience as MPs. They give the impression of not liking each other very much, but I suppose that is inevitable when they are in competition and have to spend 6 weeks disagreeing with each other.

I am also tempted by G, in that I like the groundswell of popular support they are getting, and like some of their more outlandish polices (a set wage for all, whether working or not). I was also impressed by a phrase at the local hustings that reflected the real situation, in that she said “if we were to have influence in government” then they would push for certain policies.  I think it would be a lot more of an interesting election if all the “minor” parties took this approach, rather than pretending they have a chance of getting a majority and being able to put their policies into practice.

The obvious problem with voting G is that even if you believe in all their policies, you are leaving the choice between L and C to all those who vote for either L or C.  G addressed this point directly in her address, saying that if you keep voting for people you don’t want, you’ll keep getting people you don’t want, which was a fair point.

The UKIP candidate came across as perfectly reasonable and sensible, to the extent that one wonders why he is the UKIP candidate.  Please don’t vote UKIP, as outlined above.

So I will mainly focus on L, C and G candidates, and the main memorable points for me.

The main flashpoint between L and C was over the so-called “bedroom tax”.  I really dislike this phrase, as it doesn’t seem to reflect what the policy is actually about, but never mind.  The irritation on the evening was that L and C had a disagreement about facts, as to whether C had supported it, whether L had brought it in and so on.  Disagreements about facts on panels really annoy me, in that there is very little point in arguing about them.  Someone should stop the discussion whenever it happens, and Google whether it is true or not.  Instead, it is always left unresolved, like a pub discussion about “who that bloke was who played that part in that sitcom” in the days before mobile phones.  Opinions about what should happen in the future are worth discussing, discussions about facts about things that have happened in the past should not be allowed.

Locally, there was interesting discussion of housing, particularly to the East of the A419, but the candidates (if I recall) were mostly in agreement that it needs the infrastructure to support it.  C is very keen on buses not going through the centre, and seems very pleased about the new bus station that will be built, but in a week where the number 20 bus is being axed, this was never going to be a good selling point.  This discussion also sparked the introduction “Talis, you like buses…” from the chair.

G made a good point about the subsidisation of public transport – I had never particularly thought about buses being a public good, but it does make a lot of sense, in that they bring people together and help people who can’t necessarily afford (or use) transport for themselves.  All the candidates said very strongly that local groups should always put pressure on transport companies, so I had better go and write that letter.

So who to vote for?  Nationally, I think that the accelerated austerity that C is promising is going to be damaging to vulnerable groups, and the more C candidates that get elected, the worse it will be.  L do not have plans to completely reverse the cuts, but equally not to accelerate them.  If L were to reverse some of the cuts I think that would be a mistake, as to a certain extent once the pain has been inflicted you should get the benefit, and the benefit should be making more jobs possible.  G are not going to be elected in SS, realistically, but the candidate is fantastically committed and the cause is good.

So after last night, if you are choosing between C and L, vote L, if you are choosing between C and G, vote G, if you are considering UKIP or LD, I’d be interested to know why.  So that leaves choosing between L and G.

I think Miliband is running a good enough campaign to avoid anyone getting a majority, and I don’t think “Bluekip” will get enough votes for a majority, but neither will the “Coalition of Chaos”.  I love these terms.  So given that, I think voting for G is probably a good thing to do, as the whole thing is going to be a ridiculous mess that no-one can predict.  So in that case, it’s probably a good idea to vote for change. Which I think means voting Green.

That’s my take – here is what the Adver thought.

1. What does blacklist mean?
2. Isn’t this true already?  Or is it 20 hours?
3. Don’t know what ISDS/TTIP means.  What effect would repealing the act have?
4. Good idea with Free Schools.  Have always hated the words “Bedroom Tax”.  People probably shouldn’t have bigger houses than they need?
5. State control of prices without state control of businesses seems like a mistake.
6. Why Bankers’ Bonuses and not all Bonuses?  Bankers are not evil.
7. Building homes is a good idea.
8. How will guaranteed jobs work?  Sounds nice!
9. The NHS is flawed as people are living so long, it can never have enough money. No idea what the answer is.
10. Not sure what I think about renationalisation.  Can’t see it being a good idea, but don’t feel strongly.
11. Raising the threshold for tax-free seems more sensible.

Would have been easier if he had numbered them!

With the election in 5 months, the media is all about the beginning of May, and not just because of my birthday (or even partly).  So who to vote for?

The public finances are in a bit of a state.  The massive deficit does seem to be a bit of a problem, as it does mean that a lot of taxes go to servicing debt.  Gordon Brown did talk about the economic cycle, but that didn’t seem to work.  So it would be nice to reduce the deficit.

Cuts are probably necessary, but wouldn’t have been necessary if Labour hadn’t made such profligate increases.  Belt-tightening only hurts if you are too large to start with.

So probably not Labour.  Though Anne Snelgrove seems to be a good egg, despite her too-political tweets.  But the negativity there might just be a necessary by-product of the political system, which is obviously flawed.  The worst except for all the others, possibly.

So Tory?  What’s wrong with voting Tory?  Rob Buckland seems to be doing a good job for Swindon in Parliament, but I do have a slight bias against white middle-class Oxbridge types (like me) because it would be nice for Parliament to be representative.

And voting Tory just seems wrong, to be honest.  Working in state education means a frequent anti-Tory union agenda, which is difficult to resist.  The Academy agenda just seems a bit unnecessary, and the changes to GCSEs etc are spectacularly ill-thought-through (can you double hyphenate?).  But if cuts are necessary, who else will implement them?

So are cuts necessary?  Could tax rises work instead?  Obviously getting large international corporations to pay tax would be a good idea, but everyone wants to do that and no-one seems able.  High tax on ridiculously large incomes (£2m+?) seems like a good idea, as do crazy things like a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage, so maybe that means I should vote Green.  But they will never win in Swindon, where it’s a two-horse race.  Or maybe not this time round, if UKIP rock the boat and the Green surge continues.

I would also find it very difficult to vote Green because of the name, and that I don’t especially buy into the Green agenda.  I believe in climate change (because I’m sane) but until India, China and the US start changing their behaviour it won’t make a huge amount of difference for the UK to do so. So I’ll recycle, but I won’t get solar panels (or whatever the international metaphor is).

Speaking of wasted votes, there is then the economic problem that the difference one vote can make is miniscule, and it is very difficult to decide who to vote for, so it takes a lot of energy reading manifestos etc, which in economic terms is irrational because the difference you can make is much less than the energy required.  So there are better ways of making a difference, and hopefully I do some of them (like, erm, teaching…).

But to vote is good!  So the sensible thing to do is to find someone you trust, and ask them who to vote for.  But I am yet to be convinced by anyone’s arguments.

Would like to be convinced.  Go on, convince me.