Who should you vote for?

Amidst the dramatic speeches about being ‘hell-yes-tough-enough’ and carefully constructed scenes cuddling orphaned lambs, to actually read through all the party manifestos in order to make an informed decision as to who you should vote for can seem a major feat.

Yet there are election questionnaires out there to help – type ‘Who should I vote for’ into Google and 671,000,000 results appear, from news articles to UK election quizzes, including election2015.votematch.org, uk.isidewith.com and whoshouldyouvotefor.com. These sites decipher your vote through asking questions using brief sentences; in the site’s own language.

But voteforpolicies.org.uk allows you to compare manifesto policies without knowing which party they belong to. An independent not-for-profit run by volunteers, this website asks you to read the short party policies, written in the parties’ own words, then decide which parties’ polices your values align with best, without the distraction of party colours or their leader’s persuasion.

So you might find that while you think Labour party leader Ed Milliband is ‘weird’, as a new survey via Buzzfeed found 4 in 10 voters do, Labour pledges suit your own values – despite your dislike of the party leader. Or perhaps you always saw yourself as a Labour supporter, but in fact, you are more compatible with the Greens when it comes to policy.

Of course, we know too well that the pledges parties make during their election campaigns do not always come to fruition. But voting for policy is the first step towards holding politicians to account, explain Vote For Policies.

“Once we as an electorate are more informed and engaged with what the parties have promised to do, the next step is to ensure our next government is accountable to their election promises,” Vote For Policies explain on its website. “We are fundraising to build a service that will track the performance of the government based on the pledges they made during the election.”