In case you need persuading…

There are local elections on tomorrow, up and down the country. If you can, you should vote. (I'm looking at you, students).

More particularly, you should vote against the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Your vote is under threat: taking a leaf from the racist, elitist American Republican playbook, the Conservatives are trying to make it harder for the poor and the mobile to vote. Why? Because they tend to vote Labour.

I'm a semi-detached member of the Labour Party: I'm in it because I believe that socialists need a mass party which has some prospect of taking power, rather than myriad ideologically-pure sects who'll never do anything other than produce nice webpages about the coming revolution. I'm a Labour member because I detect glimmers of leftwing spirit, and because most of the Labour right wing is still dedicated to the people as they understand it (now that Blair and most of his friends are discredited). I'm Labour because my local representatives are a fine and upstanding bunch of people.

If you need any incentive to vote tomorrow, here are a few pointers:

The coalition cut taxes on people earning £150,000, while cutting benefits for disabled children.

The budget attacked the old, the poor and the sick, while doing nothing to fix the economy.

Your local Tories voted for £9000 tuition fees.

The major attacks on public services are going to come through council provision, whether its social services, street cleaning or policing. The Tories know this: they've capped council taxes so that when the cuts come, Labour councils up and down the country will be blamed for them: no angry voter is going to listen to them when they explain that their government funding has been diverted to nuclear weapons and tax cuts for millionaires. At least if we have Labour or leftwing councils (Plaid Cymru are looking excellent too), they'll try to defend the poorest and weakest - whereas Conservative areas will hit those people first.

Let's make tomorrow a truly miserable day for Cameron and Clegg. We won't get to vote them out for another three years, but we can scour our councils clean of these cynical, selfish bastards. If you're too disillusioned and depressed to vote, your abstention will be proclaimed by the Tories as an endorsement of their vicious class warfare.

Vote vote vote

I can confidently proclaim a 100% majority for Labour and Yes to AV in the Dark Place. I know this because this is how I voted, and I was first this morning. It is, of course, downhill from here.

As is also traditional, my votes were reluctant. AV is a miserable compromise compared to proportional representation, and the only contact I've had with the Labour candidate - despite being a party member - was when he phoned me repeatedly to enlist my  support for his adoption. His general tricksiness was apparent from the first moments:

Him: 'Oh, am I disturbing you watching the cricket? Poor England, I feel really sorry for them'.
Me: 'I'm supporting Ireland, I'm very happy'.
Him: 'Me too, brilliant result'.

OK, so that's his general approach to life established. One day, just once, I'd like to vote for someone I trust and respect ideologically, rather than for the least worst option. I gave the previous council candidate a chance: he knocked on the door and I asked him if he was a socialist: he refused to answer, which I thought was shameful for a Labour candidate.

At some point, I'm going to have to stage a coup. I've even got a practical book on how to do it: Coup d'Etat, by a very nasty neo-con called Edward Luttwak. Very useful if you haven't the time or inclination to gradually convince the proletariat of your intentions.

First up against the wall is the student who got out of the lift as I entered it this morning. He deliberately pressed the buttons to every floor, which I'm sure I'd have found hilarious were I 5, but somehow don't find endearing in a 19-year old. If I get my hands on any of his academic work, his grades will descend to the basement and remain there.

Vote early, vote often

…is an Irish proverb. I voted at 7 a.m. today, partly because I had to be out of the house to get to Walsall anyway, and partly because I wanted the Tories to be behind from the start. I voted before anyone else in my ward. Plenty of loons standing: BNP, Christian Voice, Libertas etc. etc. If only we'd had PR I could have given my vote to Labour and the Greens (not necessarily in this order), but under first past the post, Labour had to have my vote solely to keep the Tories and BNP out.