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There are probably millions of posts outlining who you should vote for and why, and I didn’t really want to add this to the slew of unread opinions on the internet but I think I have perfected the criteria for picking a political party to vote for.

If you guys have been paying attention on Twitter or whatever then you’ll have a reasonable idea of which way I intend to vote on Thursday. I derive my ultimate choice of political party from my personal decision to hold the unofficial AHS motto as a primary life value. Above all else, it suggests, “dinnae be a cock.”

That’s basically all the election advice you need. Don’t be a cock, just fucking vote for some good guys. A party beginning with the letter L is a good place to start. Even if Cameron is as progressive as he claims his party is now, that doesn’t hold true, I’m sure, for most Tory PPCs. They’re still consumed with this resentment towards helping people they perceive as undeserving. Their “let’s cut benefits” poster is terrifying. I guess their sense of entitlement to hold on to a little bit more money is greater than the feeling of compassion for those who do not abuse the welfare system and genuinely need the money to support themselves or even just to keep themselves alive.

Labour party has fucked up a couple of times just lately but how much really depends on how bad you felt about the war in Iraq. Regardless, this is a) the future, after that mistake has already been made and b) Gordon Brown, who I don’t think really cares about killing Iraqis because all he can talk about is how desperate he is not to let David Cameron give the economy a right dicking (in a bad way). Fair enough, he was Shadow Chancellor for five years and Actual Chancellor for ten after that; he knows what he’s good at.

The Liberal Democrats, well, I had decided to vote for them ages ago (more than a year ago, even) when I heard a radio interview about their views on education. I can’t remember what exactly was said but since it struck a chord, I took some time to read up on them. And now that it looks like they’re going to do better than they have in a long time in this election, I’m beginning to get my hopes up that they’ll be able to push through some benign, helpful policies as well as score some electoral reform before the next election so we can fix the pathetic excuse for a voting system we’ve currently got.

As for securing the economic recovery, well, I don’t think it’d be too much to ask of Brown, Darling, Cable and Clegg to get together one weekend, get in a stack of Domino’s pizzas and some Red Bull multipacks and hammer out a reasonable and sensible plan for all the cuts that will have to come into effect, as well as plan when they’re going to happen (since Gordon’s oft-repeated claim that cuts right away risks falling into recession again seems both genuine and appropriately cautionary). And a Lib/Lab coalition government would prove to the scaremongers that there doesn’t need to be a majority party to have a workable government. I wonder if Nick Clegg would actually be happier working with Labour in a coalition than the Tories, but can’t say so because a lot of progressives are already torn between the reds and the yellows and Clegg doesn’t want to give them an excuse to vote Labour like Gordon did with his ‘I agree with Nick’ mantra in the first debate.

At first I’d hoped just to put “don’t be a cock” as the only line in this entry but I’ve guilted myself into elaborating. If you are really stuck about who to vote for this election, there’s always this handy guide.