As I type, Gordon Brown is on his way to Buckingham Palace to seek the dissolution of Parliament. The long-awaited General Election of 2010 will be held on May 6th, five years and one day after the last.

I remember typing a blog piece at the equivalent moment before the last election. I loathed (and still loathe) BLiar with a passion, and was desperate to see the end of NuLabour in power. I was disappointed of course, but there was more or less no chance of a change of government. I remember maintaining a faint hope that BLiar would trip over a massive political banana skin that would cause an upset, but on the whole it's fair to say that it was a General Election that didn't happen. From the outset, no-one seriously expected that a change of government was on the cards. And in any case, in terms of ideology and policy there was hardly anything to choose between the two main parties. They more or less fought over who was more competent to manage the business of government. The most memorable campaign pledge from the Conservatives was to make hospitals cleaner. We didn't really have an argument on our hands.

This time however, there's a clear choice between two distinct economic strategies, and anything could happen. A hung parliament is widely predicted, with no party holding a majority of seats in the Commons. In that scenario, either Cameron or Brown could be Prime Minister on May 7th. There's half a chance that Labour could hold onto a reduced majority in the Commons, but it's more likely I suspect that the Conservatives will gain the majority. I expect that the Conservatives will win by about 20 seats.

I don't hold Gordon Brown in the same low contempt that I did BLiar by any means. I find him dour but likeable and honourable; basically a decent and honest man. But he's also an ineffective Prime Minister and more importantly for me, the political party that he leads has, mostly at the hands of his loathsome predecessor, become a byword for institutionalised dishonesty and corruption. And while the current government may not have caused the financial meltdown and consequent global recession that has been the most prominent feature of the political landscape in the last parliament, I have no doubt that they made us more vulnerable to it, and handled it badly. We eventually emerged from recession one of the weakest economies in Europe, having gone into it one of the strongest. I don't have any confidence at all in Labour's ability to lead a recovery or take the necessary steps to reduce our massive deficit.

And quite honestly, I've loathed everything the Labour Party stands for all my adult life and then some.

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the Liberal Democrats so far. Or equally likely, you may not have noticed. They are a party of opportunist lightweights and amateurs without a credible policy base. Their most recent idea, for example, is to spend billions of pounds on reopening miles of disused railway track at a time when public spending badly needs to be cut back. I don't take them seriously as a political force except as a repository for tactical votes, and happily they have zero chance of forming a government.

I love an election campaign, and I'm very much hoping to see the end of NuLabour in government next month. Bring it on.