too gruesome

Some highlights from the New Statesman's roundup of how their columnists will be voting:

Stephen Bayley, design guru - Tory.
Each party is repulsive in its special way, although the Lib Dems can be dismissed first. As Tom Wolfe said, "a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested". And Charles Kennedy is a sartorial and intellectual disgrace. Howard needs a new pair of glasses. His current pair makes him look specially sinister: he would appear more pleasingly Harvard in an elegant pair of big, round, black frames. As it is, he looks like a psychotic dentist. Blair's fashion promiscuity externalises a fundamental pusillanimity. Howard may say unpleasant things, but he at least approaches a version of honesty, with consistency. But, really, with our politicians we are very impoverished. Rosser Reeves, a founder of modern advertising, said Churchill was unforgettable because he understood the relationship between oratory and image. He was a one-man communications system. With this memory of excellence in mind, I shall vote Conservative.

Ian Jack, editor, Granta - Labour
The candidate in my constituency (Islington North) is Jeremy Corbyn, who seems to care about the people he represents and who voted against the Iraq war. He has at least two other attractive qualities: he rides a bike and I once saw him reading a book in a second-hand bookshop.

Peter Dunn, journalist - Lib Dem.
Because Blair is quite mad. You can tell by the way his speech clicks on and off that he's listening to voices. I don't want him to apologise for Stalinising the public services, or for terrorising travellers on the London Tube. I don't want, ever again, to see him swaggering around NHS premises with his pan-stick make-up and the simian walk he's copied from George Bush. I just want him to go.

Rachel Cooke, journalist - Dunno
Tribally, I am Labour, but I am not sure I can bring myself to vote for them this time. Too gruesome (the war, the general bullshit). But our local candidate is Jeremy Corbyn, who has voted against the government on all the key issues. I can't vote Lib Dem just for the sake of making a protest. Ridiculous. So I may not vote at all - unless I wimp out at the last minute and go for Labour.

Darcus Howe, columnist - Not going to vote.
I am not a pig to be fattened by a little more swill from the Treasury.