Vote labour - with a lowercase L

It's peculiar because to all outward appearances the only thing that separates the major parties is not policy but a matter of timetabling - when the axe will fall, not if.

That, of course, is just the outward appearance. But it is on those outward appearances that voters rely, following half a century of deliberate depoliticisation by all the mass media.

This has been aided and abetted by parties who increasingly rely on a centre ground of declassed and alienated voters to rubber-stamp a parliamentary majority for them.

The old verities of class loyalty have been deliberately buried under a growing heap of verbiage, with the result that capitalist politicians have managed to convince whole sections of the population that such crass and embarrassing issues as class are "old" politics and have nothing to do with present realities.

Present reality apparently means that we're all in it together, banks can't be allowed to fail - although manufacturing companies can - and the boss is going to make you redundant for the good of the shareholders/company/country/economy (delete as applicable).

The working class doesn't exist any more, we're all middle class and there's a field-marshal's baton in every rucksack and, really, we're all just waiting for the riches of the absurdly well-off to trickle down onto us.

But such candy-floss interpretations of politics have their weaknesses and reality manages to intrude and disturb the cosy illusion of three nice chaps debating in a studio for the entertainment of the masses.

Because this election, just like every other election, is about class. It's about a Tory Party whose "big society, small state" is in reality about destroying civil society and replacing it with a market-run, profit-driven anarchy where the rich survive and the weakest go to the wall.

And that's direct rule by the bosses and devil take the hindmost.

The Lib Dems' liberal democracy sounds all very well, but when issues arise where the working class take action, it encompasses divesting whole sections of the working class of the right to strike.

It contains an anti-war policy that only holds until the first shot is fired and, as has been seen in local authorities, all too frequently dissolves into policies that cut jobs and services to the poor and disadvantaged to make the books balance. In short, it's a Tory party without the honesty to admit it.

And how does Labour come out of all this? The truth is, not very well. New Labour's lack of principle and its commitment to market capitalism have poisoned its policies to the extent that no decent socialist will touch the new Labour corpse with a barge-pole.

So what does the Star say? Simply, we say vote labour - but note the lack of a capital L.

In many, indeed most, constituencies that will be a vote for the Labour candidate, but only because the party is much more than the clique that controls it at the moment.

The Labour Party is the electoral expression of the labour movement and needs to be taken away from the miserable pro-capitalist clique that has taken it over so that it becomes again that expression of our movement's position and not of snivelling obeisance to the boss class.

In a handful of constituencies, there is another option. There are Communist and left candidates who deserve your support.

If elected, they would constitute a force to drive Labour leftward in Parliament and, if not elected, a strong left-wing vote would constitute the sharpest possible message to a Labour Party which needs to find the courage to rid itself of its right-wing leadership.

Above all, remember that parliamentary politics is not the be-all and end-all of the drive to build a better world.

It's a small part of a very long march whose route is by no means set in stone.

Your vote will be important, but it does not exist in a static and unchanging reality. The struggle will continue to change shape and emphasis, but the direction is clear.

And it's towards a socialist Britain.