Friday, April 04, 2008

Who Would You Vote for in London?

Unlock Democracy has come up with a nice little gadget called Votematch. You answer 25 questions and it tells you which candidate in the London mayoral election is closest to your own views. Click HERE to take the test.

I'll leave it to you to guess my own result... It wasn't Boris...

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

UKIP it is then. Cheers Ian I would have wasted my vote on Boris.

Bert Rustle said...

A quiz of policy questions which are presumably matched to the candidates opinions to show which candidate one is in favour of. A blind tasting if you will. If the previous Drive-By Media report that “most people are in favour of BNP policies until they find out that they are BNP policies” was true then the results of this quiz should wake-up the Establishment Party.

Anonymous said...

Aaarrgghhhh!! I 'came out' for Paddick and the LibDums. My life is over. What will become of me? Will I ever be able to hold my head up in Zone 1 again? By Kings Cross St Pancreas I sat down and wept.

This interesting exercise clearly demonstrates what a blunt instrument the ballot box is.

Patrick said...

I came back as a Boris man - but only by a whisker vs Paddick. I was way off from Livingstone and the Green woman.

Encourages me to presume that Johnson has his head screwed on the right way round, that many LibDem second preferences will go to Boris and that Ken and the green harpy are nutcases.

Andrew Ian Dodge said...

Lol, yeah I got UKIP number 1 too. You will be relieved I don't have the vote.

Scipio said...

I came closest to Boris, with the BNP in a close second. This confirms my fears that we should all be worried about the BNP as they are masquerading as a real political party with real policies, when in actual fact they simply have a veneer of respectibility in order to hide their racist intentions.

I wouldn't ban them, but on principle, I would never ever vote for them!

Wake up England for God's sake. Start talking about the issues which concern the white working classes, and stop giving the BNP the fuel it needs to breathe!

Anonymous said...

UKIP and Boris way outdid all the others, Ken scored almost zero on my test - so pretty accurate then.

Anonymous said...

Looks like I'm a Boris fan by the results!

One thing I'm fairly certain of, though it isn't a London issue (more a Tyneside one), I'd be very wary of voting for this man!

Anonymous said...

Interesting exercise. It confirms that I was right in thinking I should support Ken Livingstone. See my blog entry of a few days ago on this subject.
I should also, according to this, vote Labour for the Assembly but I'm not going to.

Anonymous said...

So I come out as BNP - a total travesty. Looking at the analysis, this is due to too much weight being given to trivia (who cares about pigeons?), trivialisation of complex issues, too little weight or too unclear questions on issues where I find BNP views grossly offensive like immigration and mixed-race marriages, and practically no coverage of the main reasons for voting Boris - the mayor should stop wasting a fortune of our cash e.g. on spin doctors, and dodgy deals with his dodgy mates. In short, this questionnaire is dangerous nonsense.

asquith said...

I got "The Left List" first, Boris Johnson second, and Lib Dems first. I don't think the questions are very good, especially for people living outside London. Let's just say that I won't be supporting either of my two "front runners" any time soon!

Anonymous said...

Looks like I'm a Boris fan by the results.

However I would be very wary of voting for this man, if he ever moves from Tyneside to London!

(Afraid I may have made a wrong link in my last comment, please delete as appropriate)

Benny said...

I got Boris, very shortly followed by the BNP and then UKIP. Ouch!

Anonymous said...

Ohmigod no...I came out for Ken!

But then there was nothing in there on how important I felt it was to have sound financial scrutiny of public money.

Anonymous said...

So I'm a closet BNP supporter! Makes you think, dunnit? Luckily, I am not a London resident, so my opinions are irrelevant, but it was an interesting exercise. Thanks for the link, Iain.

Anonymous said...

I'm UKIP.
The good news is I can't vote.

Newmania said...

ha ha ha you were BNP...how do I know because somehow I am..( god knows how I am firmly in favour of mixed race marriage ..hope I didn`t get it the wrong way round )
Your views are very close to mine Iain so you are BNP as well and I claim my £5

Richard Barnbrook (BNP)
Matt O'Connor (English Democrats)
Winston Mckenzie
Boris Johnson (Conservatives)
Gerrard Batten (UKIP)
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats)
Ken Livingstone (Labour)
Siân Berry (Green Party)


(PS I know Winstone Mckenzie ..mad as a hatter)

How the hell do my answers make me BNP ?

Anonymous said...

Holy S*it! I've just done it! It was not Conservative too! I'm shocked by the result-BNP for 1st, then UKIP for second, with the Tories coming third!

Anonymous said...

Great site. Takes all the hassle out of who deciding to vote for.

Getting the best phone deal, bank account, power company etc has become well established on the net. Finding your most suitable political candidate online had to come.

The next stage after finding your preferred candidate would logically be an online vote for him/her.

Anonymous said...

i got winton mac

Anonymous said...

You should have said "disagree" to the mixed race marriage question and then marked it as important when you got to the end, which makes it into a "strongly disagree". If you did that, I doubt you would come up as a BNP supporter.

FWIW, I came up as strongly Boris with the English Democrat second. However, I don't have a vote.

Anonymous said...

You should have said "disagree" to the mixed race marriage question and then marked it as important when you got to the end, which makes it into a "strongly disagree". If you did that, I doubt you would come up as a BNP supporter.

You're doubtless right about that.

I ended up with Winston Mac, then the BNP, then the Left List, with Boris trailing a poor fourth. The BNP result surprised me, as I had ranked rented housing a bigger problem than immigration, and had disagreed that mixed-race marriages ought to be discouraged. But having said that I don't actually think it's the business of the mayor to encourage or discourage any form of marriage so didn't list it as a big priority.

Isn't it a worry that someone might take this quiz, have no particular objectionable views about race but take the 'wrong' view about the Olympics or tall buildings, and end up thinking 'These BNP people aren't as bad as I thought they were?'

Bert Rustle said...

Adrian Yalland wrote ... BNP as they are masquerading as a real political party with real policies, when in actual fact they simply have a veneer of respectibility ...
I would suggest that the current form of BNP has been created by the lines of argument as presented above and by the Drive-By Media coverage. Only the most highly motivated individuals, who can be termed extremists, would have had anything to do with the BNP in the past due to the high personal cost. The BNP are potentially the subject of undercover documentaries at all times and apparently now behave accordingly. This changed behaviour now makes them electable in the eyes of an increasing number of people. The Establishment Party is held in contempt by many of their own voters, which gives a further boost to the BNP as a protest vote.

Adrian Yalland wrote ... BNP as they are masquerading ... in order to hide their racist intentions. ...
As I recall, during the last general election, the BNP did allude to race as a biological reality and to the existence of significant racial differences in their manifesto and that the other parties did not.

In my opinion the BNP is now unequivocal regarding race, indeed they even have a website section “racism cuts both ways” with a statistical analysis of British crime data.

What are “racist intentions”? Whether by accident or design the only political party whose policies align with current scientific research on human behaviour and biology is the BNP. Do the academics doing this research have racist intentions? This research has been published in a wide range of peer reviewed journals, alongside that which is Politically Correct. Are the referees alternately racist and anti-racist or are they objectively assessing the papers submitted? Is it racist to incorporate this research into political policy?

I will provide accessible links to the academic literature if asked.

strapworld said...

unlike adrian yalland who blames the BNP for HIS views.

I thought I would get Boris but, I too, got the BNP.

So I would be voting BNP for the first time.

as I live in Wales I will be supporting PC.

Anonymous said...

Let us know Ian!

asquith said...

I think it's widely realised by now that the quiz is a bit shite.

Yak40 said...

People have voted in a "New" Labour government for the last ten years but think it's the BNP that's dangerous ? Wake up.

Labour have destroyed more that's good about Britain than just about anyone would have thought possible.

rob's uncle said...

It's Lindsey German and the Left List for me . . .

Anonymous said...

It is a terribly badly designed site.

Anyway, I got UKIP followed very closely by Boris - and I would prefer never to have the experience of being followed very closed by Boris.

Anonymous said...

UKIP by a nose from Winston - who sounds like a bit of a star.

I thought the Mayoral jurisdiction covered the police, transport and promoting the Capital ... in places like Venezuela, so was a bit surprised at the range of questions.

Death! to the London Olympics.

Anonymous said...

I would vote Boris - I don't need to take a test.

Anonymous said...

Rupert Tube writes: "Death to the London Olympics!"

Don't worry.

Anonymous said...

The reason everyone is shocked that they came out as BNP yet support their policies is because they believe the media smears and anti BNP propaganda.

How many of you have actually read the BNP manifesto? it is NOT what the press would have you believe!

if the BNP represent your POLICY views then you should vote for them, if not then you are not being honest with yourself and are being conditioned by the lies of the press and BBC.

Anonymous said...

So lets get this right, a lot of you are doing a test which comes up that the party that across the board is closest to your views is the British National Party.

You then, go into media brainwashed mode and freak out you might be a 'Far Right Extemist'. You then go into a fit of denial and say you will vote for another candidate.

SO, CAN I ASK.... DO YOU THEN COMPLAIN WHEN THE PARTY YOU DO VOTE FOR GETS ELECTED IMPLEMENTS A WIDE RANGE OF POLICIES YOU DISAGREE WITH?????

Because if this is the case my friends not only are you exceedingly stupid but there is a word to describe you - SHEEP.

Anonymous said...

I got Boris 1, Paddick 2, BNP 3. The Watermelon last and Ken 2nd to last.

What a load of old horse-s***. Apparently the BNP are tracking Boris on every issue - except for the inter-racial marriage. I didn't put inter-racial marriage top of my priorities in the last question cos - guess what? - it's not really the biggest issue in the election for London Mayor.

But needless to say the Nazis will be getting a big "FUCK OFF NAZI SCUM" on my ballot.

Adrian said...

Ha. Interesting to see that a lot of your readers are closet BNP supporters.

My order of closeness came out as:
Ukip, left List, LibDems, Respect, Labour, Greens, EngDems, Tory, BNP.

Anonymous said...

A very well structured site.

I was surprised to find that, although I support Boris, I was closest to Livingstone.

Interesting that Boris and Livingstone agree on the majority of issues.

Anonymous said...

BNP
UKIP
Conservative
LibDhim
Labour
Green

Ta, that tells me where to put my second preference vote...

Anonymous said...

What that poll omits is the rather important question of whether you'd consider the candidate competent actually to deliver his manifesto.

Paddick and Barnbrook could, for example, stand on a platform of Monica Bellucci paying me £100 a time to fellate me daily. I still wouldn't vote for either of them on the strength of such a pledge because, attractive though the financial package would be, I doubt they could actually make it happen.

Whereas Boris with his contacts almost certainly could.

Anonymous said...

"Paddick and Barnbrook could, for example, stand on a platform of Monica Bellucci paying me £100 a time to fellate me daily....I doubt they could actually make it happen.

Whereas Boris with his contacts almost certainly could."

I can't say I've seen that pledge on Boris's manifesto but in view of your confidence in him, if he'd like to include it, he'd be guaranteed my wholehearted support.