All hail to the floating voter

The earliest General Election I can remember is the one in 1964. This was the first time I watched election broadcasts on behalf of the major parties- only three then, and I never paid much attention to the Liberal ones, as my Dad informed me that as there was no chance of them getting into power they could say anything they wanted. And as I watched I would be thoroughly persuaded by each argument in turn. The result (not influenced by me of course), was a narrow victory for Harold Wilson's Labour Party. By 1966 and the time of Labour's emphatic victory I had already begun to develop my left-of-centre political analysis and bought only the Labour view of things.

And thus has been the case ever since. Consequently, I harboured something approaching contempt for people who couldn't make up their minds until polling day, and sometimes not even then. What was wrong with them? I thought- can't they think for themselves?

Now, however, I find myself taking a different view. Now I don't blame anyone for finding it difficult to decide which box to tick in the sanctity of the polling booth. Right and left have converged, producing policies that mirror each other almost exactly. People might vote for the LibDems, but can they be trusted since their U turn on student tuition fees? Others might be instinctively attracted by the Greens, but like my Dad said, they're not going to get into power; not this time at least. The Scots, having voted No in the referendum have felt sufficiently embarrassed by their decision to back the SNP in previously unprecedented numbers.

So my advice is: if you don't already have a well-formed political analysis which will have determined which way you are going to vote long ago, by all means go for the one that strikes you as appealing at the very moment you take that pencil in your hand- it's as good a way as any.