Sigh. I have thought for many months that I'd probably vote UKIP at the next general election. I am well aware of the "vote UKIP get Labour" mantra, and its probable truth, but apart from education & welfare reforms I couldn't see much difference between Conservative & Labour. They both think it's fine to plaster the landscape with windmills subsidised by ever rising power bills, they both love the EU - Cameron may have been forced into offering a referendum in the event of a majority Conservtive government but he's upfront that he'd campaign for continued membership - and there seems no difference whatever between their social policies; both are devoted to undermining the family and want to stick the nations's offspring in State nurseries so that new mothers can be forced back to work and contribute tax to the Exchequer, to name but one.

However. Very heavy sigh. After Miliband's terrifying conference speech I am reluctant to give my vote to UKIP, which has no chance of attaining power, and thus bear some responsibility for a Labour victory. There is much about Conservative policy that I don't like, but it isn't quite as economically illiterate Labour's. Of course it is a long time until the next election, and anything could change, but right now I feel I will have to put a peg on my nose and vote Conservative.

Sorry, Ukippers, I love you, but I don't want to see Labour in power.

I'm close on seventy years old. In all that time the only health problems I've ever had were associated with sporadic attempts to abandon the dreaded death sticks. Mostly I realised for myself that I'd done it long enough and did the sensible thing. On the last occasion, at the anguished pleading of my then teenage daugher, I lasted five years. By the end of those five years I'd developed virulent psoriasis from stress, was three stone overweight, at severe risk of developing the type 2 diabetes inherent in my family and on such strong prescription anti-depressants that they themselves were sending me insane. Eventually the daughter who'd begged me to give it up begged me to take it up again. I did, thirteen years ago. 20-a-day later I'd ditched the anti-depressants, the psoriasis cleared up and I needed no more expensive NHS treatment. I rapidly returned to a healthy weight with no prospect of diabetes and I've never had a day's ill-health since.

I'm not saying that smoking is good for anyone, or even denying that there are those predisposed to its bad effects. However I do resent the tickbox culture and the fact is whatever NHS costs I have incurred hitherto have been as a direct result of 'giving up' and that no matter what happens to me hereafter there is no NHS cost that could exceed what I have paid in tobacco tax since I was puffing behind the school bike sheds around 1962.

Meanwhile the tax on cigarettes goes up & up and my weight goes down & down as I compensate for the tax by reducing food expenditure. Currently at 5' 5" and 6st 9lbs. That doesn't bother me, it's my choice, but what DOES make me laugh is if I drop dead tomorrow they'll say it's an early "smoking-related" death and entirely ignore it was probably down to malnourishment due to smoking policy!

I do love Boris, he adds to the sadly deficient gaiety of the nation! However, if I were to vote Conservative again, which is unlikely with Cameron as leader of the party, I should probably be even less inclined to do so if Boris were leader. However enjoyable he is, there are reasons to distrust him. Not only his elastic attitude to his marriage vows, he is much more of a Europhile than is sometimes apparent.

However everyone gets something right, and Boris is spot on about Syria.

For what it's worth, and quite apart from whether or not I support gay marriage, the first thing that struck me upon this bill being mooted, with its emphasis on equality, was that if civil partnership were denied to heterosexual couples it simply introduced a different INequality.

Indeed, when civil partnership was legislated, which I fully supported, it did strike me that by being restricted to gay couples it discriminated against siblings, or parent/child, or heterosexual platonic friends who share a life/home and would like the same legal rights.

Social engineering always seems to introduce "Whose rights trump whose?" It's a mess and governments should steer well clear of it.

I think you may have misunderstood me. You will note that I included myself among 'lowly voters'. I merely meant those not in the party elite. Let's not get upset about it :)

If you do not understand it, Google is your friend :)

I can't speak for those intimately involved, but political upheavals that have a seismic effect and no doubt remain fresh in memory amongst those in Westminster old enough to remember them, do tend to fade for the lowly voter who tends to think plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. However BBC4's re-run of "Margaret" last night did bring back a host of memories for this lowly voter.

I doubt it was the BBC's intention, but the overwhelming impression was of a giant brought down by a shoal of snapping pirhanas. The then Mrs Thatcher had her faults, of course, she was human, but I remain firmly convinced they were sins of omission rather than commission. Who knows what she might have achieved when her prime objectives were cemented and she could have turned her attention to other things?

It is historically too distant to cast abuse at particular people, they did what they did. However I think it is a shame that so many of them are so-called Conservative voices today.

Yes, I do know that and UKIP did get my vote, although energy expense was only the main among many issues and I know Councils can't influence it. People will always take advantage of the prevailing 'system' so I have no feeling one way or the other about Cameron's father-in-law, it is the system that's rotten - not him.

What I would really like above all is that the majority understands the difference between capitalism & corporatism. UKIP shows promise, but it doesn't have power. Power corrupts. Voting UKIP is a leap of faith - would it resist corruption if it had power? Only time will tell, assuming UKIP ever gets any power. It's a risk I'm willing to take because I hate the status quo, but I'm quite prepared for disappointment. Actually, with a bit of luck, I will have shuffled off this mortal coil before I see what my grandchildren will see :)

What an extraordinarily charming person you must be! And so very insightful. As it happens I'm a pensioner with no private means who receives considerably less than a full State pension. Rather than claiming the Pension Credit to which I'm entitled I carry on working. My field of work is and always has been computer support. I am not as mobile as I once was so these days it is mostly via remote access. It would be hard to do that without a broadband connection. Maybe I missed the Conservative policy that says it would be better to axe that and claim more benefit?

I don't bother completing Con Home surveys any more. The results appear to be restricted to Conservative Party members and I rescinded my membership about a year after Cameron became leader, although in my innocence I voted for him.

.In Surrey County Council elections yesterday I cast my first-ever non-Conservative vote, as indeed did a host of friends & neighbours. I fully recognise Gove's & IDS's exemplary reforms but they aren't enough, I loathe the social engineering that is going on, and the whole Big Government/muzzle the media agenda Cameron is now making noises about holding a referendum on EU membership, but simultaneously obfuscating his intentions. A bit like that "cast-iron" promise in the Sun, about a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. He gave himelf a let-out, in the very last line regarding a referendum on a yet unratified Treaty, but he must have known that most people would interpret it as an honest promise.

Just another "trust me" politician who's had no experience of real-life, is too wealthy to understand the real concerns of people finding their fuel bills rising expotentially because of "green" policies.

That is, to be honest, my main concern. I'm sick to death of shivering & shaking through winters, piling on layers of clothing, while progressively turning my thermostat down so that I can keep the bills within payable bounds while subsidising "renewable sources" like useless windmills & solar panels.

If UKIP is sceptical about "global warming" they'll get my vote.