Poll: General election voting intentions poll

Voting intentions in the General Election - only use the poll if you intend to vote

  • Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

    Votes: 2 0.3%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 287 42.0%

  • Democratic Unionist Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 67 9.8%

  • Labour

    Votes: 108 15.8%

  • Liberal Democrat

    Votes: 25 3.7%

  • Other party (not named)

    Votes: 15 2.2%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 2 0.3%

  • Respect Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Scottish National Party

    Votes: 36 5.3%

  • Social Democratic and Labour Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 4 0.6%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 137 20.0%
  • Total voters
    684
  • Poll closed .
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Why was there not an "Undecided" option? At this point in time i think all the parties are utter crap. It's more a case of picking the best of a bad bunch. I'm swinging more towards labour at the moment, tories and the useless lib dems have done nothing but ****ed me over as a student. They expect me to live off £4500 /year, bearing in mind that pays for accomodation, utilities, leisure... Everything!

Students leaving university with £40,000 of debt, what a joke! Considering further rounds of budget cuts are going to come, how much worse can it get?!?! I dread to think what it will be like when i have kids and they grow up having to rely on this total joke of a higher education system.

The business secretary also said that calls from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to raise fees to around £15,000 are something the next government “will have to face”.
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Source: http://www.timeshighereducation.co....se-tuition-fees-significantly/2016231.article

TL;DR - The current student loans/higher education funding system does not work... AT ALL.
 
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Hikari Kisugi said:
Singapore works well. The others are madness driving from some versions of theology, either made up centuries ago, or in the case of north korea made up recently and continue to be made up.

Modified technocracy would be a perfect solution if it wasnt for humans ;)
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Ok, thanks for the reply although I guess my question should have been tighter as I wasn't really asking for lots of possible forms of rule, it was more to find out what Combat Squirrel would want instead of what he feels is an illusory democracy. However I can't help feeling that you sum up an awful lot of the problem with a great many things in those final five words...

thebennyboy said:
Why was there not an "Undecided" option?
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Because the poll was requested to be that way, it was for people who already knew their voting intentions. It's not designed to be predictively accurate and there's absolutely no controls or corrections for voting bias as you'd see in a proper poll, it's a snapshot for people who already have declared intentions. Next week (or next time the poll is run) it could be an entirely different set of votes.

dunker said:
why's the vote closed?
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It was set to run for a short period (20 days) to give a chance to re-run it at intervals before the election itself and maybe see what changes. Albeit if the options are altered for a re-run to include other options it'll be even less use for comparison than before.
 
RDM said:
Probably because of the lack of one on the ballot paper too. There is no real point in having "spoilt ballot, undecided, none of the above" etc because they don't really count for anything results wise.
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This, it skews the results. It doesn't count in real life so why count here?

That's why i requested it that way.
 
thebennyboy said:
Why was there not an "Undecided" option? At this point in time i think all the parties are utter crap. It's more a case of picking the best of a bad bunch. I'm swinging more towards labour at the moment, tories and the useless lib dems have done nothing but ****ed me over as a student. They expect me to live off £4500 /year, bearing in mind that pays for accomodation, utilities, leisure... Everything!

Students leaving university with £40,000 of debt, what a joke! Considering further rounds of budget cuts are going to come, how much worse can it get?!?! I dread to think what it will be like when i have kids and they grow up having to rely on this total joke of a higher education system.



Source: http://www.timeshighereducation.co....se-tuition-fees-significantly/2016231.article

TL;DR - The current student loans/higher education funding system does not work... AT ALL.
Click to expand...

The current maintenance loans/grants are a lot more generous than they were when I was at University. My accommodation costs and tuition fees totalled £600 more than my loan. My parents gave me a £40/week allowance on top of that to help toward living costs, though that was still well short of my needs.

Do you know what I did about that? I got a job.

A prospective student starting in September, financing themselves independently from their parents and going to University outside of London recieves a £4047 maintenance loan and a £3387 maintenance grant. That's a total of £7434. Add on a part-time job in a supermarket (12h/week @ £7/h) and you get a total of £11802. Taking Tax and NI into account (this student wouldn't be paying any) and that's equivalent to annual earnings of around £12850, above the minimum wage. Oh, and this student would only be working 12 hours per week during the summer to earn this, leaving them plenty of time to chill out, get some work experience or simply just earn more cash. If that supermarket gives this student full time employment over the summer annual earnings would be around £14800. Factoring in the tax and NI this student wouldn't be paying, that's the equivalent of around £16.5k/year.

If your finances are as bad as you say then your parents should be helping a bit more. The maintenance grant is intended for people from low income households in lieu of parental help. Your family should be topping up your income to somewhere in the £7k/year ballpark, either through cash, or through helping you to buy things you need.

The current system works fine. It's the current bunch of entitled, whining students that are the problem.
 
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satchef1 said:
Add on a part-time job in a supermarket (12h/week @ £7/h) and you get a total of £11802.

The current system works fine. It's the current bunch of entitled, whining students that are the problem.
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Inside London is a bit different though. The most I paid for accommodation was £7200/year. In your example where the student takes a job (which I didn't, because my studies were too demanding) that would leave him/her about £88/week for everything else. After a zone 1-2 travel card (I cycled instead) at £20/week and bills he/she is broke, and that's no money left for food!!! Presumably the maintenance is a bit higher than your outside-London example which might cover it.

I do agree most students could/should endure more hardship though (myself included!)

/OT

HAz said:
Anyone voting green deserves to be castrated
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Go away if you're going to post drivel.
 
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joeyjojo said:
Inside London is a bit different though. The most I paid for accommodation was £7200/year. In your example where the student takes a job (which I didn't, because my studies were too demanding) that would leave him/her about £88/week for everything else. After a zone 1-2 travel card (I cycled instead) at £20/week and bills he/she is broke, and that's no money left for food!!! Presumably the maintenance is a bit higher than your outside-London example which might cover it.

I do agree most students could/should endure more hardship though (myself included!)

/OT
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It's an extra £2269, or about an extra 30%. That's a bigger difference than the living wage in London vs the rest of the UK. £7200/year for accommodation sounds very steep though. I'm paying that for a three-bed house up here, so I guess if that's representative of the cost of student accommodation in the capital then that loan ain't a lot. Leaves about £70/week for everything else.
 
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Just had labour come round.
And it got me thinking. I couldn't if seemed less interested, and nothing they can say would make me vote for them, with their current and historical economic policies, as well as Ed.
But then without saying anything, how do politicians know what the majority feel. All they get is very loud vocal minority groups. Not that I agree with politics should be a popularity vote. Should be evidenced based where possible then public opinion when no solid facts exist.
It's why I quite like the government voting site in principle, but in reality it doesn't work, you need the majority of the public to vote on several key items a week, so they can properly gauge an opinion.

Anyway a bit of a brain frat. Our system needs upgrading to something better.
 
satchef1 said:
... if that's representative of the cost of student accommodation in the capital then that loan ain't a lot.
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It's very variable, in halls I got the cheapest single room which came to about £100/week (inc bills) for a room about 14 x 6'.

From a look at the current halls prices they vary from £59 (3 people sharing a room) to £253 per week. I didn't understand at the time (and still don't) who can afford those top prices. :eek:
 
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Glaucus said:
But then without saying anything, how do politicians know what the majority feel.
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Someone I know bumped into Ed Miliband and Ed did ask him for his opinions. I know we're all supposed to be very cynical about politics and politicians but many politicians do care what people think.
 
I wonder why the poll at the front of this thread differs so drastically from the current BBC "poll of polls" ?

BBC : Consv= 34% OCUK= 41.96%
BBC : Lab= 34% OCUK=15.79%
BBC : LibDem= 8% OCUK=3.65%
BBC : Ukip= 13% OCUK=20.03%


Maybe we all know something the other polsters don't lol.
 
kitfit1 said:
I wonder why the poll at the front of this thread differs so drastically from the current BBC "poll of polls" ?

BBC : Consv= 34% OCUK= 41.96%
BBC : Lab= 34% OCUK=15.79%
BBC : LibDem= 8% OCUK=3.65%
BBC : Ukip= 13% OCUK=20.03%


Maybe we all know something the other polsters don't lol.
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Its not too far off the general proportions - I guess the pro Labour demographic is more likely to visit the BBC site than this one however.
 
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