As you may be aware, there is a UK General Election (and most Local Elections) due to be called on the 6th of May 2010 (if you aren’t already registered to vote, have a look at About My Vote: you need to have registered to vote before the 20th of April). And although the candidates have until the 20th of April to register with the Electoral Commission, as registered voter I thought I’d see how easy it is right now to find each of the 3 major parties and 4 minor parties (which are either standing in the Harrow West constituency or have had quite a bit of publicity the last week or two) manifestos.
I started by looking on Google UK for the common party name (i.e. for the United Kingdom Independence Party I searched for “UKIP” as that is what they are commonly known as) and tried to see if their manifesto was listed on the first page. I was only looking for “official sources” (i.e. directly from the party’s website) – not commentary on mentions by third parties. I then tried to find the manifesto from their own website by searching the front page for the word “manifesto” and/or using any site search facilities. I was shocked at how difficult this actually was and disappointed that the parties make it so difficult to find out what you are meant to be voting them in for.
Anway, here’s the results from HARDEST to find to EASIEST. Note, I am only reviewing how easy it was to find the manifestos – not the contents of them(!).