Unlock Democracy with VOTE MATCH

By Merlene Emerson | Thu 14th May 2009 - 8:20 pm

I was at the Vote Match European Election launch held at Apple’s palatial showroom on Regents Street this past Monday, drawn by the special guest appearance of Stephen Fry. Appearing in a tuxedo and bow tie, he did not disappoint as he opened with an apology for the rest of us being under-dressed for the event.

What I hadn’t expected was to discover that the collective consciousness of the 200 or so guests in the audience, on answering the 30 specimen questions by democratic show of hands, managed to produce a Liberal Democrat voter!

Following the success of Vote Match London 2008, this year’s project by Unlock Democracy (funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) has been specially designed with the European elections in mind.

All those who may be unclear of which Party’s policies best reflect their own views – on issues ranging from the Common Agricultural Policy to the free movement of workers within the EU – can now check out the quiz on-line at www.votematch.co.uk.

On June 4th, Londoners will have the chance to vote for 9 MEPs to represent us. In 2004, the Liberal Democrats narrowly missed by 0.6% of the votes to elect a second MEP. But if the results of yesterday’s Vote Match experiment is anything to go by, Londoners deserve to have more than 1 Lib Dem MEP to represent their balanced and progressive views. So let’s Make it two , or even 3?!

* Merlene Emerson is Lib Dem PPC for Hammersmith

3 Comments

crewegwyn 14th May '09 - 9:01pm

Mmmm

Votematch has me 44/60 Green, 36/60 Lib Dem AND Tory, followed by UKIP, Libertas, Jury Team and … bringing up the rear … Labour!

Strange, strange.
Tina Walker 15th May '09 - 10:57am

Please note that Votematch was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Limited.
Merlene Emerson 21st May '09 - 12:16pm

Thanks – I stand corrected. Also since realised that we will only have 8 MEPs in London not 9, unfortunately.