Voting Ukip, said Iain Duncan Smith, Tory Secretary for Work and Pensions, is like writing a suicide note.
Much to my detractors’ chagrin, it’s only in the sense of that simile that I’m going to kill myself on election day.
This desperate act will be done in the serene knowledge that I won’t be taking anyone with me: in my constituency, the Tories enjoy a majority even Putin would envy – and they don’t have to stuff the ballot boxes or cripple anyone trying to stop them doing so.
Would I still vote Ukip if it mattered? If this could mean letting Labour in? My emphatic, unequivocal and resolute answer is that I don’t know. Perhaps. Probably. Unless my right wrist went on strike at the last moment.
I wouldn’t respect myself Friday morning, gagging at the sight of Ed grinning smugly from TV screens. But then I’d learn to live with it, confident as I am that the difference between the two sets of subversive nonentities, though not nonexistent, isn’t as great as they claim.
Writers more secure in their understanding of the intricacies of strategic, tactical or tactico-strategic voting, will tell you which way you should go. I don’t presume to be qualified to do so.
All I can suggest is that you vote your conscience, leaving the subversive nonentities and their groupies in the press to figure out the strategy and tactics. They have to earn their keep somehow.
Just decide which party you hate the least (I doubt many people love any of them, unless paid to) and vote accordingly.
And, if you know how to pray, do so. Whichever way you vote, Britain will go to the dogs without God’s help.