IMO politics is basically about economics - where the money comes from and what it is spent on. Unfortunately there has been no new schools of thought to emerge and gain significant traction since the late 70's. What this means is that those who will be holding our collective purse strings were educated to believe that "the market" is to be considered as something akin to divinity and somehow the fact (with a capital F, underscored, and highlighted) that markets have always required laws to restrict behaviour which free markets encourage (and the free-er the market, the more they encourage such behaviours) in order to function as markets not monopolies and/or cartels is somehow of less significance than the fact that greed trumps altruism more often than not, hence pure communism, with a 100% directed economy, is not practicable. However of more direct significance to our current voting choice is what has happened since Monetarism became the hymn sheet from which all western governments began to sing...
The idea that freeing up 'wealth creators' to do what they do best is beneficial to the entire economy is known as 'trickle-down', since the theory goes that when the wealthy have more money they spend it into the economy and this creates jobs in service industries and some manufacturing, which then creates jobs in all primary, secondary, and tertiary industries as the wages are spent into the economy, etc., i.e. the money trickles down from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. However the truth is that this has not happened. The experiment has had 35 years. The evidence is in. It has not worked. We can argue ad nauseam over why trickle down doesn't work, but what is not up for debate is that it doesn't. Personally I suspect that the fact that property prices in desirable locations have rocketed beyond all reasonable expectation in the last 35 years has a lot to do with it, but i suspect that of more significance is that it is a huge mistake to imagine that any national economy can be managed at national level, but our international organisations which, in theory, could manage global economic policies are run by the very people who have a great deal to lose were such policies altered (and it hardly matters what kind of alterations we may consider - if you're sitting pretty as things are, any change is bad, especially any change after which the consequences cannot be entirely predicted).
So I find myself looking at Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith and what do I find? They learned their trade sucking on the monetarist Thatcherite bitter tit. And then I find myself looking at Labour and wondering how the fuck the Milibands and Ed Balls got to the top? Well, they weren't Brown and Blair and I spose after Iraq the Labour Party knew that they had to put someone up who had nowt to do with that. Clegg? Betrayed his left leaning party for the promise of power and the referendum he got was a joke. So not only a traitor to the ideals he was supposed to be representing, but an idiot. Farage is basically a career politician - he knows full well that nothing he says will ever be put to the test, but so long as he keeps saying them, he will have a job and/or fees for appearing on telly. The Green Party are far better dealing with local issues and global policies than national government - IMO they just don't have anyone unpleasant enough to deal with the likes of ISIS...
So I feel that nobody deserves my vote based on their policies for national government. At a local level, Lillian Greenwood (Lab) seems to have been no worse than any of 'em and much better than a lot so I feel that supporting her personally would not be something my conscience would haunt me with later. However my vote does have national consequences. It comes down to this then: I know the Tories will continue with monetarism and that it will continue to make the gap between the rich and poor increase. I know that the Lib Dems cannot be trusted and the one person amongst them who seems to actually understand that a massive shift in economic policy is needed, Vince Cable, does not have enough clout amongst them to drag the Party with him. That leaves Labour as the only party who could have the power and inclination to make changes (not that I expect the changes to be anywhere near as drastic as I would like)...
For me then it's either vote with hope, or don't vote. People died for our right to have our minor influence on how our lives are controlled, so I can't in good conscience not exercise it. Besides, even though I am very tempted by the idea that if the majority of people spoiled their ballot paper, it would be a massive vote of no confidence and things would have to change, the truth is that the idea is so naive. Tory supporters always vote. Those with something to lose always do whatever they can to keep it. It doesn't matter than millions of them don't actually have anything they would lose were our government's policies more socially democratic, they just have a massive debt and a 'lifestyle', but they think they do... It wouldn't even matter if the majority of ballot papers were spoiled - British Governments are not formed by those who have a majority of cast votes, just the most. It wouldn't matter if 95% of ballot papers were spoiled, if some party had 3% they would be the government and the majority of people would be pleased that there was a government in place. This is Britain - even our poorest are better off than the majority of the world's population: we are not about to see a revolution!