After long tussles, I yielded to loyalty and voted Tory down the line. I almost voted for my local Labour MP, as Kate Hoey is excellent on a number of issues and really pisses off the animal rights lobby. But, with the shadow of PR hanging over me, I didn't want to face tomorrow having not voted the right way. There's going to be a lot of this today and we're in for a very exciting night.
So, only two observations from me on this today:
1) News on election day is really boring. Honestly, Today had nothing to say. The only interesting thing to have happened is the Farage's plane crashing. I know this is slightly unpleasant, but it is funny, especially as it was a misguided publicity stunt to fly a banner outside. Idiot (though glad he's not dead).
2) Everyone else gets a bit overexcited. Facebook, admittedly, not an indicator of people's sober views, is full of a lot of hyperbole from both sides, banging on about liberty or wrecking the recovery, often ill-informed anti-Tory / Anyone but Gordon rhetoric. This is overstated. There are ideological dividing lines; and that's good. But no-one is threatening to dismantle the post-Thatcher free-market consensus; not is anyone seriously expecting to drop the raised bar on public services that Blair spent the recovery money on. Everyone will have to raise taxes and cut spending. There will be differences of detail, and we should debate them, but everyone who tells you either side will lead to Armageddon is a) wrong, and b) probably best avoided.
Finally, a prediction: It's going to be close, and I don't think we're going to get there, but we'll be close, closer than uniform polls say. So:
- Con: 315
- Lab: 220
- Lib: 85
- Other: 30
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