Chuckles Election 2010 Special!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're weak, scared and confused. You lack purpose and direction. You need leadership. You're so pathetic you don't even have the faintest clue who to look to for that leadership, do you? Quite frankly, you make me sick. Nevertheless, I shall deign to aid you in your predicament with this comprehensive guide to the three main parties running in today's National Choosegovernment.

Labour
The incumbent party's past form includes: two notable wars - one illegal and one completely fucking unnecessary; an erosion of civil liberties and the criminalisation of greater swaths of the British public than has been managed by any other government, ever; tuition fees; a shitload of dodgy legislation rushed through in the last few precious seconds of what will very likely be their last parliament in government for quite some time.

As if New Labour never died, the party aims to continue Tony Blair's sinister quasi-privatisation of public services by turning police, schools and hospitals over to a system of 'federations' and trusts. That's 'chains' to you and me. Which means that if your local police force is underperforming, it could find itself assimilated, effectively made a franchise of a more successful force, even one several counties away, like Hertfordshire (if you live near Hertfordshire, imagine Durham). Number 10 refuses to confirm or deny the existence of future plans for unstoppable, merciless law-enforcement cyborgs.

If re-elected, Gordon Brown will make good on his insistence on replacing his obsolete, floating nuclear penis extension, Trident.

In a further echo of the New Labour project, Labour would continue in its commitment to making seemingly the whole of the country middle class. Because Britain just isn't bourgeois enough.

And their pledge for the compulsory Electoral Reform category is to introduce the alternative vote, which would alter the system just enough to satisfy a numb British voter without the unpleasant side-effect of significantly harming the party's advantage.

Vote Labour if you're a confused neoliberal living in a glassandsteel swankpad, blissfully unaware that your unapologetic capitalism completely devoured the last few remaining scraps of your youthful socialist tendencies long, long ago.

Conservative
They've been keeping quiet about it ever since they decided to position themselves as the progressive party of the people who'll reverse Brown's "tax on jobs" (that's his clever way of framing the 1% National Insurance increase), but Cameron's Tories are still hellbent on skullfucking society and any hopes of an economic recovery with a programme of severe public spending cuts.

Family is, of course, the magic word for the Conservatives, and rest assured that Cameron will continue his illustrious predecessors' war on people who've chosen not to have them, like an inverted China. Tax breaks for sprogpoppers and tough shit for everyone else. Although it's unclear exactly how this squares with their plan to scrap Contactpoint, the national database of children's social workers and GPs, many of whom were hitherto unlinked.

Arts and humanities would be edged out of education by an increased focus on cuddly, warm, traditional subjects like maths, science and history, and a policy of bribing maths and science graduates to become teachers by paying off their student loans. Which makes sense, because artists don't usually vote Conservative. Not before they're minted anyway.

As if to prove they haven't completely abandoned their intolerant roots, they'll be insisting on English language tests for foreign nationals coming to the UK to marry. Presumably they won't expect British-born citizens leaving the country to prove they can speak Spanish. As for Europe, Cameron promises a return to the good old days of isolationism, and shows form in this regard, having already pissed off the EU's major players by withdrawing from the centre-right European People's Party to join the European Conservatives and Reformists coalition with Poland's Law and Justice Party, a bunch of hard-right Eurosceptics with interesting views on homosexuality (bad) and Nazism (not bad).

Hunting! What modern, civilised society doesn't enjoy seeing wild animals being torn limb from limb by packs of slavering dogs? Cameron promises you a vote on a repeal of the ban.

The Conservatives also intend to replace Trident, although psychosexual therapy would be cheaper.

On electoral reform, Cameron would reduce the number of MPs, which would alter the system just enough to satisfy a numb British voter with the pleasant side-effect of significantly increasing the party's advantage.

Vote Conservative if you're a blinkered, nostalgic sociopath, a frustrated bigot, frightened and confused by a modern, multicultural world. Also if you're one of those dangerous idiots who doesn't think politics actually affects anything and just wants to see a different, more marshmallowy face on the news, purely for its own fucking sake. Or here's a better idea, if you're one of those people: don't vote. Don't vote at all. Go bowling or something. See a film. You've ruined democracy. You are the most persuasive argument yet for totalitarianism. Fuck off.

Liberal Democrat
They're the other ones you didn't know existed until three weeks ago, when you became their most ardent supporter. They stand primarily on a platform of not being the other two, along with a long-standing commitment to introducing proportional representation, a system which, by happy coincidence, would give the party a half-decent chance of actually being elected in their own right. It's difficult to find anything to be critical about in their manifesto, because it was written by people who presumed they'd never have to put any of it into practice.

The country's fallen in love with Nick Clegg, and it's not hard to see why. Here's a man with the skill and foresight to just happen to be Lib Dem leader at a time when the public are desperately unhappy with the status quo. Progressives especially love him, presumably choosing to overlook his suspiciously oft-stated desire to form a coalition government with the Conservatives at the expense of Labour. (For his part, Cameron's reception to Clegg's overtures grew increasingly hostile at two key points in the campaign: initially, when it looked like it might actually have to happen, and then more so when it no longer looked like it might actually have to happen.) Oh, and he looked directly at us during the television debates. We got a bit damp.

Vote Liberal Democrat if you're under 24, bored or a bit damp.