Confusion

Right now I feel lucky. I live in a constituency where I can make quite an easy decision about where to cast my vote. If I was less concerned about the individual candidates for my area, however, I’d be utterly torn right now over how to decide which party to vote for.

Frankly, I’m with the rest of the country right now in my interest in the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg had the best run on Thursday night, but I reiterate: he had a ludicrously easy ride. The way the tide of opinion has turned to the Lib Dems makes a hung parliament a near certainty. Even if one party wins, their government will be weak. If you wonder what a weak government looks like, cast your mind back to John Major’s premiership. Even when he had just taken over from Thatcher and had a solid majority in parliament, the party was so badly divided that it was barely capable of running the country.

The Liberals need over 40% of the vote share to win a majority. Have a play with this to see why I say that. If they keep gaining momentum and gain it at the expense mostly of Labour, they may just achieve being the biggest or second party in a hung parliament. This is almost reason enough to vote for them. The reason I won’t is because of their policies. I’ll make a more detailed comparison of the party manifestos later, but suffice to say I don’t believe that the Liberal or Labour take on “fairness” is actually fair. “Fairness” is usually just a byword for “bring ’em down to your level”.

Labour frightens me, too. The National Insurance increase will take money out of my pocket and it will make it more expensive for businesses to employ people. From that point of view, I don’t believe they’ve thought through the consequences of their policies. Then again, the Labour party never have.

Now, my stance for the last couple of years has been “vote Tory”. It isn’t anymore. The reason is this: A senior civil servant a few months back (I’ve tried and failed to find the news article where I originally read this) was surprised by the fact that, despite wanting to be Prime Minister for so long, Brown had come in with no actual plan for what he was going to do with the country. Given how much dithering Cameron’s Tories have done over the last six months, I don’t believe their government will be any more successful. What this country needs is a decisive government. What we’ve got is a choice between a hung parliament and two opportunist ditherers. This isn’t a reason not to vote, it’s a reason to think very carefully first.

EDIT: The Telegraph has provided a useful little tool with which to compare your views with party policies. Unsurprisingly, it told me I should vote Conservative.