I shall probably vote although it will no doubt be a wasted vote in our first past the post system. Not sure who I will vote for yet. If our politicians were serious about re-engaging the apathetic public they would move to a PR system. Another split vote may hasten that. As it would the height of non-democracy if, say, the Tories went into coalition with UKIP or the LibDems, when, say, Labour and SNP got an equivalent number of votes. If we are to keep getting coalitions with a first past the post system we will end up a dangerously divided country. Having said that, coalitions have been rare but if they were to be the future under the current system we ought to legitimise the coalition concept via PR.

The other thing that is sickening about our established political class is that they defend our method of 'democracy' as giving people a local representative in parliament and yet come the elections they make it all about the leaders and the prospective PM! Hypocrisy as with everything they utter. To hear Cameron and the female on QT last night was truly pathetic - they just repeat their simple message over and over again and stick to the party script. Not sure that's leadership or representation. Then there was Ed who did rather well with the audience but was embarrassing when Paxman interviewed him - came across like a petulant teenager.

Mullholland is exactly what an MP should - he is superb at supporting is constituents, a credit to his party, his area and most of all himself. It would be a tragedy if he didn't get re-elected.

This is from one of his Facebook posts today after his local campaign for an Otley kid to receive a drug that completely alleviates a rare condition ...






There isn't a party line for Greg Mulholland

There's better places to use this evidence than on a message board..



I had my longest period of employment when Labour was in power actually



Beside a lot of my acquaintances started their creative industry careers through the future jobs fund which the conservatives scrapped and replaced with work for your benefits at Poundland.



Can you prove that?

I bet there is when it comes to a division.

What's his voting record like?

double post

The only time I ever see engagement from my local candidates is via a few leaflets in the run-up to a vote. The last MP I knew anything about is because he was jailed for expenses fraud (David Chaytor, Labour). Granted, I don't go hunting them down but they're not a priority for time once I've factored in work, family, etc. I've had a couple of leaflets but generally the headline bullet points are all the same. I'm pretty aware of what's going on locally and I've never seen any engagement from an MP.

Interesting the Greens are getting a few votes on here. Is that because people can't bring themselves to vote for one of the 'big' parties (as in cod'ead), or because they genuinely support the Greens and want to help them grow share? Disillusioned ex-Labour/Lib Dem moving on perhaps?

I view the Greens a bit like UKIP. Both have radical views and are utterly dedicated to them, but frankly they come across as right muppets and I wouldn't place any of them in a position of power.

Personally I think UKIP are a busted flush - I think they will get less seats than the Lib Dems and this could be the Tories saving grace.

It seems no one wants to have a coalition with Cameron so unless he can pull a rabbit out of the hat he is done for.

Nicola Sturgeon was on radio 4 yesterday, the arrogance is something to behold. The SNP will hold the power they might as well make Salmon PM because he will effectively be pulling the 2 Eds strings. Something is wrong when a party who get 1m votes dictates policy for the whole country

7.9% voting as a "rebel" [urlhttp://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=1672[/url

I don't know what the average is but it emphasis's my belief that all MP's should be free to vote in accordance with either their own conscience, their own local party instructions or to the benefit of their constituency BEFORE the national political party - there is little point in getting to know your MP if he/she is simply ALWAYS going to toe the line and vote for the party, you may as well elect a 10 year old child to do that, what you need from an MP is someone who is resident in the constituency (genuinely resident), who runs weekly surgeries (Mulholland has two per week on a Saturday), and who gets involved with local issues and campaigns and will take action on behalf of a constituent - for me Mulholland does this and he has twice assisted me in issues that I raised via email to him on one occasion introducing me to a senior manager in a Department who took on a case for me, the bugger disagreed with me in the end but at least I got above the sheep who normally just churn out standard letters.

When I am The Great Benevolent Leader the first thing in the bin will be the party whip system.

he's doing well if he can find two Saturdays in a week...

Have you ever managed to do two things in one day ?