The first rule of Democracy Club? Talk about it!

Did you know there was a general election going on? No? Well there is, and of course, being non-partisan, Greener Leith is not going to tell you who to vote for. However, we do hope that you will actually vote. 

And the good news is that there is actually some genuine competition for both constituencies that cover Leith - Edinburgh North and Leith and Edinburgh East. That means your vote will indeed matter, and could make a difference.

If you're the kind of person who prefers to vote on the policies, rather than the person, you might want to check out this site: http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/  

Vote for policies asks you to choose four policy areas that of concern to you, and then asks you to choose which of the party policies match most closely to your beliefs. The only trick of course, is that they don't tell you which party is proposing which policy until you get your results at the end. At the time of writing, more than 90,000 people had taken the test with overall results that some people may find surprising.

On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who prefers to vote on the candidates, and their response to more local issues, then we've found a whole bunch of sites that have been set-up to help you decide. 

First of all, you probably want to know what your choices are. YourNextMP.com can tell you who they are, using just your postcode. EmailYourCandidates develops this one step further. Again, tell the site your postcode, and it will work out who your candidates are, and help you send them all an email, if the candidates email address is known. This could be really good if you want to find out what they think about a specific issue. 

Meanwhile TheStraightChoice.org aims to keep a record of all the election leaflets that are posted out by candidates. Again, you can search for election leaflets circulating near you by postcode. And if you're RSS feed savy you can even subscribe to a feed based on your local area. You are also encouraged to upload leaflets you receive to the website. 

If you want to check out what the incumbent MP has done in the last parliament, then you may wish to check out TheyWorkForYou.com. Of the two local incumbents, Gavin Strang MP is standing down, so there's not much point in having a look at his entry. However, you can see what Mark Lazarowicz, the current MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, has been up to by clicking here. TheyWorkForYou.com also covers the Scottish parliament, and so you can also check out the record of Robin Harper MSP who is currently a candidate in the general election in Edinburgh East.

And if that wasn't enough - Democracy Club aims to bring much of all this together, all in one place. It is built by and run by many of the same people who built the websites above. But Democracy Club has a real focus on local candidates and local issues. We'd encourage everyone to sign-up and take part. Already, there seem to be a group of active people taking part in both Edinburgh East and Edinburgh North and East. 

One of the things the site aims to do is compile a list of local issues. These will then be put to all the candidates, so that local residents can easily get a feeling for their views. You can download a list of all the local issues posted in your constituency from these links:

• Democracy Club Issues for Edinburgh North and Leith at 13/4/2010
• Democracy Club Issues for Edinburgh East at 13/4/2010

 There are only a few days left to submit an issue for inclusion, so if there's something dear to your heart that's missing, we recommend that you sign-up and get it in quickly. You can register at:

http://www.democracyclub.org.uk/

If you're at the opposite end of the scale and don't really care about the policies or local issues, why not vote based entirely on the look of the candidates alone? Electornot.org.uk is the site for you. 

And lastly, If you live in the North and Leith constituency you have the chance to look your candidates in the eye and quiz them on their views on Climate Change. There's an Ask The Climate Question hustings event planned for the 28th of April at St Pauls and St Georges Church. More info on that event here.

There's loads more election links on Richards blog.