So, who are we going to vote for?

If you're British it hopefully won't have escaped your notice that we have a general election tomorrow... and given the current political landscape this seems to be to be the hardest choice I'll have ever had in the ballot box and, if the pundits are to be believed, probably the closest result since the 1970's. The problem seems to be that all of the main parties seem to be doing nothing more than producing soundbites and spin but not tackling the real problems that have been forced on us by many years of mis-management.

First of all there seems to be a lot of people who seem to think that immigration and the EU are the big issues and that they need to be dealt with harshly... in other words, stopping them in their tracks. What people don't seem to understand though is that throughout Britain's history we've relied on immigrants, today more because of the growing laziness of the British public. Yes, the Poles, the Czechs and the Slovakians are taking jobs but these are no different to those being taken by the Carribean and Indian workers who came to Britain in past decades, the big difference is that these people were clearly willing to get off their collective butts and go where the work is whereas Brits seem quite content to sit on theirs and complain they can't get jobs because the "immigrants" have taken them. If we had no immigration we'd still have the same jobless situation, we'd just have more stuff that didn't get done because Brits are too "proud" to do the menial stuff for low wages!

As for the EU... wake up folks, it's the 21st century. As a nation we need to forge closer ties with the rest of the world, not reject them out of hand because "it's not British" and "we should rule ourselves". Ok, so the EU is not perfect, but it is working and despite what the tabloid press tell us on a daily basis Britain does have a big say in what the EU decides and our economy gets a great deal from membership!

So, on that basis the UKIP and BNP are non starters... although I would never put my X in the box of either of these jingoistic parties - and the leaflet that the BNP dropped through my door showing a photo of their leader alongside Winston Churchill was just sickening. I do hope the Churchill family take action for this slur against one of this country's greatest leaders!

So then we have the economy. One thing that strikes me is that transport and energy are a major part of how our country operates and growing taxation on road users in the name of dubious climate change science in recent years has been slowly bringing our country to it's knees. Everything we use from food to computers has to be delivered somehow as do the raw materials for our factories and the finished goods, all have to get to the customer. Rising costs of transportation are leading to increased costs. Employees are asking for more money to cover their own transport costs. Gas and electricity are more expensive too which just adds insult to injury. The result of this? Companies struggling, rising unemployment, increased taxation required in order to pay for the aftermath.

Are any of the three remaining parties going to deal with this? No! The Labour incumbents seem intent on more of the same, the Liberal Democrats want to do more of this in the name of the environment and the Conservatives... they've spent several years telling us they'll do right by the driver but can we really see that happening come Friday morning?

Then there's constitutional reform. How is it that in the 21st century that Britain is still not a proper democracy? We have an unwritten constitution, an unelected head of state in a position of potentially unlimited power, an upper house of parliament that is still made up of those who have been appointed by the government of the day and then many aspects of government managed by unelected groups called "quango's". Are any of the main parties interested in fixing this? Will the turkeys vote for Christmas? I think not!

So, who do we vote for? If we vote Lib Dem en masse we're likely to find ourselves with a hung parliament and a repeat of the 1970's... which, for those who remember it, went quite badly. Voting Labour just gives us more of the same which is ever increasing taxation and not a lot else. The Conservatives seem to have lost their way and seem to spend much of their time trying to re-capture the right wing vote from the Eurosceptic brigade (so, full circle and back to the UKIP and BNP now... who will NEVER get my vote so they may as well stop trying).

Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, I really don't know what direction I'll be taking but I do get the feeling that the Britain that we'll have come the next election probably won't be much better than the one we have now.