Suffolk Tactical Voting App Launches on Facebook

As the County Council Elections on Thursday 2nd May draws closer Tactical Suffolk 2013 have launched a searchable service that shows the best candidate to choose if you don’t want a Tory County Council.

Due to our current voting system it could well be that by voting Labour, Lib Dem or Green in your division you are actually helping the Tories to win by splitting the opposition vote. In our system it is “first past the post” so a Tory will win with only 30% of the votes if others voted say 22% Lib Dem, 20% Labour and 19% Green. Combined together though the Lib Dems, Labour and Green poll 61% but the Tories still win the seat.

In this election UKIP are standing in nearly all of the seats and this is doing the same thing to the Tory vote so in some seats the Tories are especially vulnerable this election.

Suffolk Conservatives are standing on 5 pledges:

Our Pledges for Suffolk

• No increase in council tax for the next four years 
• High-speed broadband across Suffolk
• County-wide ‘No Cold Calling Zone’ 
• A new Travel Card for young people 
• £270million investment in care facilities

But on her Blog Lib Dem county councillor Caroline Page who is fighting to keep her Woodbridge seat is more interested in what isn’t in the manifesto:

Snapshot of Suffolk’s County Council 2009-13: 

Threatened closure of 29 libraries.. the vanishing of the Road Crossing patrols.. loss of the rural evening and Sunday bus services.. closure of Youth Clubs.. divestment of Highway Services.. divestment of Country Parks.. vast sums spent on gagging clauses, consultants and senior management salaries and perks.. abolition of the Explore youth travel card.. sale and potential closure of Care Homes.. the plummeting of Suffolk schools down the educational league tables to their current places as 148th out of 151 at Primary school level, 141 out of 151 at secondary level… (there’s plenty more, but that’s enough to be going on with) 

It’s quite a spectacular grime sheet, isn’t it? As the 2013 elections approach it may be worth remembering that the Suffolk Conservatives made no mention of Suffolk’s New Strategic Direction when they went to the polls in 2009. Yet it didn’t stop them doing their darnedest to implement it without any mandate once they had their majority. (And when they were stopped, many of the NSD proposals continued under a different guise..)
It might be well to ponder this before voting. 

The Suffolk County Conservatives’ 5-pledge election manifesto is as thin as a lo-calorie water biscuit – and about as nutritious. They promise to replace a youth travel card they cut two years back, the high-speed broadband they funded in this electoral cycle, plus an (unavoidable) expenditure on care , a Country-wide ‘No ColdCalling Zone’ (go figure) and that old Tory staple of no council-tax increase – which is always wheeled out as an alibi for their more spectacular episodes of financial mismanagement. And .. er.. that’s it.

Who you vote for in the elections is of course your choice but if you don’t want to let the Tories in by the back door then please take a look at the Tactical Voting app and if you like it share it with friends (you don't need to be on Facebook to use the app).

You can also download the Tactical Suffolk 2013 PDF

This post is entirely my own personal opinion it does not represent the views of any organisation that I am a member of or have any contractual relationship with.