Last week’s poll: General Election policies

After the political parties published their manifestos for the election on 12^th December (even if the Brexit Party refuses to call its list of pledges and aspirations a manifesto), we polled our readers on the implications for engineering and technology.

Almost half of repsondents (46 per cent) backed the Conservative Party, making it the clear winner. The Tories have been accused of having a lack of detail in their manifesto, focusing instead on the headline soundbite of 'Get Brexit Done'. As far as top line policies go, Boris Johnson is promising 'Millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and infrastructure' alongside a pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050 through investments in green energy. Engineering is mentioned just twice across the 64-page document, but the Conservatives appear to be the party most trusted by readers of The Engineer to steer the ship.

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Further reading

• New policy centre to drive engineering’s dialogue with government
• View from the Academy: Engineering to mitigate climate change
• Low carbon automotive projects receive £35m of UK government funding

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Labour came in second on 26 per cent, with the Lib Dems closely behind on 18 per cent. Just one in ten respondents chose the 'other' option, a reflection perhaps on the constraints of the UK's First-Past-The-Post electoral system rather than the policies of the parties further down the food chain.

In an effort to avoid accusations of political bias, we aren't going to highlight any particular responses from the comments this week. Politics by its nature is often divisive and this is reflected below the line, so we will leave it to our readers to continue the discussion. As ever, we welcome debate but ask all readers to keep the conversation civil and familiarise themselves with our guidelines for the content of comments before submitting. Comments may be moderated for concision, grammar and style before publication.