ineke.co.uk

With all the leaders debates now over, and the news thoroughly drenched in all the manifestos, statements, spats, all sorts that’s going on, I’ve been trying to find good sources of unbiased information to inform and help me to decide who to vote for next month. I wanted to look beyond all the leaflets that just tell me why I shouldn’t vote for the other parties, or tell me that only 2 parties have a chance in my constituency and to avoid the others, and I wanted to start from scratch in looking at what parties actually stand for.

Here are five of the resources that I have found most useful in doing this!

• Verto – [Quiz] – A great little app from The Independent which they’ve apparently designed to work like Tinder. You swipe left or right to indicate whether you like or dislike policies, and then put the categories you care about nearer the top, from that it will show you for yourself, your region and countrywide, on a pie chart style thing, which way you are inclined – I found it really helpful!
• Vote For Policies – [Quiz] – A slightly more long winded version of the above. I loved this website for the European elections a couple of years ago as it was more concise. Now it’s quite long paragraphs, but again for each category you pick the paragraph you most agree with and it spits out a political party at the end for you.
• BBC – [Info] – The BBC have produced a really helpful breakdown of each parties main policies in each area, so whereas above you’re trying to look at policies anonymously, here it lists all parties policies on education, or economy, or you could look like party, and see a list of all their policies. A nice clear, concise summary of those long manifestos.
• Evangelical Alliance – [Info] – Similar to the above, put together by a Christian magazine. The EA asked five parties for their responses to a few key areas, and so again, just have a nice, light summary of all that info that’s out there.
• Votewise 2015 – [Book] – This book is written by a Christian, looking at some of the major issues from a biblical perspective, which takes up the majority of the 100 page book, as well as reminding us why it’s important for Christians to be involved in politics. The book ends with members from the five major parties, some of which are also MPs, explaining why, as Christians, they have chosen to be members of the party they have.

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**EDIT**

• I Side With – [Quiz] – I found this one last night too, haven’t had a chance to do it yet, but it’s a lot of statements that you can select yes, no, or a variation on them, and say whether or not it’s a statement that matters more or less to you

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**EDIT 2**

• Christianity Magazine – [Interviews] – Premier have published interviews with David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg

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**EDIT 3**

• How to vote – [Quiz] – another policy quiz, quite a simple and short one, just looks at four major policy areas, and asks your opinion on a load of bits, let’s you select which you care more about, and always offers a “no opinion” option, which is quite nice

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Of course, it’s also important to look at what your local candidates are saying, while a lot of it may sound like bravado, they are the ones that will be representing you in government.

And don’t forget, there’s local council elections on 7th May too, this is where those who make decisions about the place you live get elected, and so it’s still really important to vote knowledgeably there too!