Arr, fer pirates in parleyament ye be a-needin' of Mad Cap'n Tom! He wants to tax all Cheryl Cole mp3 downloads, and he once got five gold runs on Blockbusters. Clegg, Brown and Cameron - eat your hearts out!

I like his thoughts on how to fix broken Britain! like how cool is he...

I registered my vote as who, if I didn't live in a sectarian sh*thole, I would happily and automatically vote for!

That sounds fair enough - I see this as being more like an opinion poll than a record of 'real' voting patterns. And even with my fairly slender grasp of NI politics, I can certainly see why you wouldn't want a DUP MP - so although I'm generally all for principled voting even if it means a 'wasted' vote, I think I would take the tactical path in your situation too.

For me, I've always found principled voting very easy, because although I do prefer Labour to the Tories, that preference isn't actually strong enough for me to be prepared to support Labour just in order to keep the Tories out. I've always preferred to just vote for the party I'd really like to see in power, which is the LibDems, and am happy enough if the practical result of that is simply that their share of the vote in the constituency where I'm living goes up, giving them a greater chance of winning next time. That's what happened in 1997 when I lived in Bristol. Since then, in Oxford and now also here in Leeds, I've also had the added bonus of living in constituencies which already have a sitting LibDem MP - so I've had the luxury of my principles actually aligning with my preferred tactics anyway. And now I am suddenly in a position where I can realistically apply the same sort of principles I've always exercised and expect them to have some national impact, which is absolutely awesome! I'd strongly prefer the LibDems to win outright, but seeing their share of power increase significantly would be a reasonable second-choice outcome for me.

I'm still not really sure what they stand for, though.

As miss_s_b has pointed out in the past, the best place to see their core values is the opening statement of the party constitution. I think they do a pretty good job of living up to those values when formulating policy and engaging in debate - and that's fundamentally why they get my vote.

That's certainly possible - but my disenchantment with the other two parties is such that I still think giving the LibDems a chance is preferable to letting the other two continue making the unholy mess of things that they have already proven themselves capable of.

My own particular inclination is still towards Labour, as I do feel they're much more fair, just and generally decent than the Conservatives

Yes, in theory Labour are certainly far preferable, but in practice they don't seem much better. Of course, a major issue for me is the fact that this is a party which has implemented massive cuts to Higher Education, led mainly by a minister with a distinctly chequered history who I don't think should be in a position of power at all - and as a result of which my job and my subject are under threat. I simply cannot support a party which has done that, either directly via a vote in their favour or indirectly via a vote against their rivals.

Doubt it, not in the current front bench, anyway.

But if the LDs do win an overall majority, then a lot of the MPs will be candidates thinking they're running to fly the flag, some of whom won't have even taken time off work to campaign.

It'll be an interesting Parliament, that's for sure; some of the candidates in seats winnable in the current opinion polls are in their late 60s.

But fully costed manifesto, full prgoram for Govt, a very detailed set of policies going back years; joys of a democratic party, there's an expert in everything within the membership. Doesn't mean they're actually sane, because, y'know, Lib Dem member.

Was going to reply to one of your earlier points, but too long, so apologies for double post.

FWIW, in 2006 I was pushing hard for a tactical voting campaign against the Labour Govt, then it was going to have to be for a hung PArlt, now it's a LD win (I joined later in 2006).

Tactical voting is an inevitable result of the electoral system, I really need to dig the article I wrote on that out of the archive.

The total number of Labour MPs compared to other party MPs doesn't help the Tories; it's only if the Tories get more seats themselves that they get in.

It's very unlikely they'll form a coalition Govt, and most will keep an eye on the vote share as well. Having more SNP MPs threatens a few things, but it won't help Tories directly.

It is, of course, possible that Cameron might form a coalition with the SNP. But...

A coalition Govt isn't a Conservative Govt. Which is a very important point to make. Not that I actually think it's likely; did like the way PAxman asked Cameron if he'd serve in a Clegg led Govt today, that was nice to see...

I don't know anything about them, I'm afraid - I had to look them up on Wikipedia yesterday to see who they actually were. To an outsider (even ons who's lived there during a general election), the multiplicity of parties in NI is seriously baffling, especially when you can't begin to relate to their aims, so the only one I really retained any understanding of was the Alliance party. But if it's surprisingly touching for you, that's great.

It is worrying to see, though, that if I click on the 'More details' link, it tells me that apparently someone on my flist is claiming that they are going to vote for the BNP. My guess is that that's just someone out there being trollish and trying to stir up drama - but in my view, even that is still a pretty wanky way to behave.

Heh, and now there's clearly been an update, and all those PUP votes have disappeared and the BNP vote is showing right up on the main graph (grr!). So I guess there are some glitches in the code...

Ah, true - good point. So all to be taken with a fairly hefty dose of salt, then.

That's very fair-minded of you. This one seems to be pretty good from the point of view of anonymity - although presumably the person who wrote it can see all the results. I'd be interested to know whether the person on my flist who ticked BNP would have done so if it wasn't anonymous, though...