Despite all the Clegghype the opinion polls still point to a small but workable Tory majority as the most likely outcome. The bookies odds, which have historically been better predictors than opinion polls, mostly now have a Tory majority about neck and neck with Tories the largest party in a hung Parliament, and it seems the money might be moving towards the Conservatives. :-(
We can't vote for a hung parliament, desirable as it might be. We can only vote for our own local representative in Parliament. So boring as it sounds the correct way to vote for decent people who don't want a Tory government is exactly the same as the last four general elections. Vote for the non-racist candidate most likely to beat the Tories. (If you are a Tory or a racist I'm not talking to you, right? Just to get that straight.)
For many lefties and socialists and libertarians and Greens that means, yet again, taking a deep breath and voting Labour with no illusions - despite the Iraq war, despite the insanely pathetic tragedy of Blair's last few years, despite the shitty racist posing on imigration, despite ID cards (which most Labour MPs didn't even support when they were voting for it, the idiots), despite the crappy Digital Economy Bill (which most MPs and cabinet ministers didn't even understand when they were voting for it) Because its still true that they are less bad than the other lot.
For a lot of Labour supporters that means voting Liberal. (But they should be very careful not to fall for the hype and make sure that the Labour candidate is not in fact likely to come in ahead, because otherwise they will just be wasting a vote and letting the Tories in) For some Labour supporters that might mean voting Plaid, or SNP, or even in one or two seats Green. (Just possibly in one or two Northern Irish seats it might even be DUP which is a hard thing to ask an SDLP voter to do)
For people who couldn't give a dam about Labour, who want to change the electoral system, or who want a Liberal government, the best tactics are, unfortunately, EXACTLY THE SAME. A liberal vote in a seat that Labour is fighting the Tories for, risks letting a Tory in. And the Tories are the party LEAST likely to make any constitutional change.
The recent Labour governments for all their faults have moved some way on constitutional change more than any other governments for well over a century. A real Scottish Parliament with real powers; the removal of most of the hereditary peers; (why Blair blocked the all-elected second chamber that most British people want is just one of the many inexplicable things about his slow political decline after 2001); the "unitary authority" trick to return some tiny bit of their stolen autonomy to towns and cities that had had it taken from them by the Tory Local Government acts in 1962, 1973, and 1985 (it has always been the Tories that have centralised power away from towns and cities); and a sort of promise, if endlessly delayed, to change the electoral system for the House of Commons.
The problem with Labour and electoral reform isn't that they don't want it - most party activists do, and possibly even most MPs - but that they don't think its very important and urgent. Its far, far, down their agenda. Their whips and strategists think its a distraction from Serious Business. But they really have experimented with different systems in Scotland and Wales and in mayoral and European elections (enough to prove to anyone paying attention that the list system is worse than FPTP) and there is a chance that they will do something radical. More than a chance if there is the kick up the arse of a hung Parliament which makes it a condition of joining a coalition. If that happens Labour will probably go along with reform to stay in power - the Tories probably won't because it would split their own party. Just like supporting the Liberals over Europe would. The Tories can't work with Liberals on this, Labour can. Simple as.
If - IF - there is a huge increase in the Liberal vote, or once there has been a hung parliament, or if there is at some time in the near future a different electoral system - THEN things could change. But if the polls and the odds are to be believed things have not changed yet.
In South-East London where I live the best vote in all three Lewisham and Deptford constituencies is Labour, despite what Greens and Liberals said on their rather mendacious election material - all three of Greens, Liberals and Tories claimed to have come second to Labour last time! Same goes for all the Greenwich seats (even Eltham) and all the Southwark seats except Bermondsey. As for me? Well, I won't be voting for Gordon Brown - we don't have a President in this country, we have a Parliament. I'll be voting for our MP, Joan Ruddock. Partly because she's the Labour candidate, but also because she's a good MP (despite voting for ID cards and the DEB) One of the few who understands anything much at all about science, and about as green as Labour gets. She deserves to be re-elected, as she almost certainly will be.