I think the title is pretty obvious, but this thread is for the discussion of the 2010 General Election happening this May.

This is the first year I have been able to vote, and I have to say that it has been somewhat dissappointing that it seems more like voting for a face than policies. I'm sure a lot of people here have been having a bit of a laugh about the conservative posters of David Cameron's shiny face, and the limitless parodies you can put to it. It is also amusing how Gordon Brown is compete with his very awkward grin. Oh, and of course, the underdog who was constantly joked about for being the forgotten one of the 3 main contenders, Nick Clegg, who now seems to be a favorite.

To be honest, after the first political debate, I was thinking more about voting for the Liberal Democrats, as Nick Clegg seemed to be a bit refreshing from the bitchiness betweed "look at me" Cameron and "desperate" Brown. He is definatly charasmatic, and in my opinion, the more likeable of the 3. I did remember hearing more on the Conservative party's policies however, some of which I really liked, even though I felt that Cameron had a bit of an ego. To be honest, I was a little stuck for who to vote for due to how the media does not make comparison of each party's policies very easy at all. Thankfully, one of my friends linked me to this website* which cleared everything up for me, especially as I have no political bias. To be honest, I've never had much of an interest in politics until quite recently. I ended up with 55.56% of my choices being for conservative, I think I know who I am voting for!

I really like the crime and education policies for the Liberal Democrats. For crime, they say they would like to increase police numbers and give them more authority, along with cutting down the amount of paper work they have to do (something which currently prevents the police force from wanting to take on smaller investigations). For education, they wish to scrap tuition fees for university students studying their first degree, and are planning on spending more money on aiding struggling students. They are also hoping to have more vocational courses instead of having subjects being purely academic (even art and music are made to be more adedemic than vocational under the current National Curriculum).

For the Conservatives, I like their policies on democracy, environment, immigration, economy, Europe and welfare. For the economy, they have good policies on helping with the increasing problem of youth unemployment, and reforming local services to improve schools and the NHS. For immigration, the points system is the main focus, as well as closing up the holes in the current border control system, and reducing net immigration. Their welfare policies I believe are very strong, as they focus on helping families with disabilities and of low income. This ties in well with their policies of tying up the loopholes in the benefits system. For Europe, they wish to be positive EU members, but will not extend Europe's power over the UK. For environment, their main focusses aid making homes more economic, which cuts down bills and unneccessary power wastage. I also have more faith in the conservative party as they say that recovery from the recession is not going to be easy, it will be a slow process but it can be done. This seems to be a realistic point of view in my opinion.

So, I would like to know who else will be voting in the election next month.
Do you know who you are voting for?
Or, if you are not old enough to vote, who would you vote for if you could?
If you are not voting, why not? (please something more than "politix is crap")
Also, how do you feel about the political campaigns this year?

Thanks,
Storm.

* This website contains a questionaire, where you choose subjects you are interested in (I picked all), then you have a multiple choice of each party's policies on each subject. Each party's name is annonymous (although it is extremely obvious which ones are the BNP and UKIP), so you are less likely to take a bias,