This evening the leaders of the three main parties will have another shot at winning over the ‘floating voters’ with the third and final live TV debate.

However, some voters have already made their minds up and three of Brighton’s best known social media characters told News From Brighton why they have been convinced by the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Conservatives

Andrew Hancox

http://twitter.com/andrewhancox

http://blog.andrewhancox.com/

I’ll be voting Conservative in this election because I strongly believe in both their ethos and policies. The ethos of the party for me is defined by three concepts:

Egalitarianism – people are entitled to universal equality of opportunity; this is an area that the party has an unjustifiably poor reputation on.

Personal responsibility – the government should not intrude in our lives more than necessary, people should be encouraged and empowered to put something back into society, this is reflected in the, admittedly buzzword heavy, Big Society policy package.

Pragmatism – there is space for idealism in politics but we live in a less than ideal world and policies need to reflect that; Bismarck described politics as the art of the possible, something we would do
well to remember.

There are two key policy packages I particularly support:

Conservatives acknowledge that we cannot entirely put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to energy use and that nuclear power is one of the key ways forward. Getting people in to jobs and keeping them there is the only way
we will weather and turn around the current economic situation and Conservative policies reflect this.

The Liberal Democrat policy of raising the minimum wage and the Labour policy to raise national insurance are superficially attractive but would cause a huge reduction in the number of entry level positions and cause large numbers of redundancies whilst drastically increasing the wage bill of the NHS and other public sector organisations.

Labour

Dan Wilson

http://twitter.com/wilsondan

http://www.wilsondan.co.uk/

I’m voting Labour in Brighton Pavilion because I believe that Nancy Platts is a compelling, principled candidate and, without doubt, the only woman in the race who actually gives a damn about Brighton.

Like my dad, I’m Brighton born and bred. For many years the town was badly served by absentee Tory MPs concerned with little more than their careersand the Conservative party. David Lepper changed that and has been a superb constituency MP since 1997.

In 2010 we have a race between an MEP who lives in Brussels, a Tory from London and Nancy Platts, who does actually live in the same country and city as the people she wants to represent. I want a powerful local voice in Parliament. Don’t you?

But local isn’t enough. Nancy is also refreshing because she’s not just another plastic, professional politician who puts party before principle and just does what she’s told. She opposes the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the renewal of Trident and ID cards. She backs electoral reform and has worked her life in proper jobs.

Labour hasn’t been perfect since 1997. But there’s plenty to shout about. Minimum wage, low unemployment, civil partnerships, New Deal, Sure Start, shiny new hospitals and schools, devolution, peace in Northern Ireland.

The choice in Brighton Pavilion is pretty clear and a close run race. I don’t really care what the bookies say: if you want a great local MP and don’t want a Conservative government, vote Labour. I’m a Nancy boy. Why aren’t you?

Liberal Democrats

Miles Cheverton:

http://twitter.com/thetalldesigner

http://www.thetalldesigner.com/

I’ve always been a liberal. I believe in personal responsibility, unfettered by excessive interference from government and that’s why I am voting Liberal Democrat.

No other party came out against the illegal war in Iraq. No other party has a sensible, education and evidence based approach to reducing drug use. The Lib Dems have pledged to repeal huge swathes of the Labour government’s authoritarian & draconian laws infringing upon our civil liberties.

I also passionately believe that our electoral system needs radically updating. Our current system is commonly referred to as “first past the post”. It is in fact quite possible that Labour could come third in terms of total number of votes, and yet win the number of seats they would require to control government. The Lib Dem’s have pledged to give us proportional representation which would give all parties, however small a voice, and would end the two sided power struggle between Labour and Tory.

Lastly – I believe that our media needs reform, the disgusting displays by the right wing and Rupert Murdoch press on the day of the second debate should be proof enough for anyone that the media think they control the election process, not us, the voters. Control of such influential media needs to be distributed amongst many people, with many opinions, not one, out of touch control freak.

Vote Liberal Democrat for Freedom, Democracy and a change from the politics that has brought us to our knees.

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We’d love to hear from Green Party and UKIP supporters who want to tell the people the of Brighton and Hove why they support their political party. Write to us at contact@newsfrombrighton.co.uk