And the winners are ... the tactical voters

NOW that the election has been called, a simple pleasure awaits millions of Britons - the chance to vote out your smug, idle local MP. Why spend time worrying who to vote for, if you already know who to vote against?

This joy of tactical voting is one of the few pleasures offered by the Westminster voting system, where a vote for a losing candidate counts for nothing. The alternative to a wasted vote is to knock out the incumbent.

Perhaps your local MP voted the wrong way on the Iraq war, or leans the wrong way on abortion, or on house arrest for terror suspects. Perhaps their answer to your letter was a bit shifty - perhaps they didn’t answer at all.

Then, say you are an anti-war Scottish Nationalist in Inverness, a tight Labour-Liberal Democrat race. If you hate Tony Blair more than you hate Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dems are the obvious choice.

Tactical voting will perhaps be more appealing in this election than any other because, once you cut through the spin, there has seldom been less difference between the two contenders for 10 Downing Street.

Despite their protestation to the contrary, both Michael Howard and Tony Blair have effectively the same policies on Iraq, tax and (in England at least) on health and education. Their policy differences are so trivial that they resort to distorting each other’s plans, and then trying to campaign on disagreements that don’t exist. The sane response is to switch off - and look instead at the individual MP.

Tactical voting is never given its proper status in the British political system. Politicians who benefit from it don’t want to admit in public that their main electoral asset is being second-worst. Yet in several seats across Britain, this is the blunt truth.

In 1997, it was not a rush of New Labour support which swept Stephen Twigg to his out-of-the-blue victory in Enfield Southgate. Voters simply liked the idea of booting out Michael Portillo, so voted Labour accordingly. Scores of other surprise Labour and Lib Dem 1997 wins, held in 2001, were simply the result of voters from the two parties forging a "progressive consensus" and joining forces to defeat Conservatives.

In Scotland, there was a massive operation entitled GROT (Get Rid Of The Tories), where voters would go for the Lib Dems in seats such as West Aberdeenshire and for the SNP in Perthshire. The Tories, indeed, lost Scotland entirely.

This is not a twisted, vindictive fringe. Studies suggest that, at the last election, one in every ten electors - that is some 3.5 million people - voted tactically. They have worked out how to play the first-past-the-post system.

And it is entirely rational. If you want to make a difference in the Westminster system, it’s far easier to hurt your enemy than help your favoured party. So people will happily go for second-best.

Arguments against tactical voting ("It would let the Tories in") don’t really wash where the Labour MP has an impregnable majority. It certainly doesn’t wash in Scotland, where the Tories will be lucky to keep one seat.

Yet Tony Blair used this against the SNP in 2001. A vote for the Nationalists, he said, "would put a smile on William Hague’s face". But something, since then, has fundamentally changed.

It is the perceived grin on Tony Blair’s face which the band of tactical-voting malcontents would like to wipe off this time. The Iraq war changed the tactics: they are just as angry, but have changed targets.

The GROTs of yesteryear have mutated into a host of websites, each organised and working out which Labour MP to kick out. There is now talk of "civilised anti-war Tories" who are to be preferred to Blairite loyalists. The phrase comes from Strategicvoter.org.uk ("Vote with a kiss! Vote for peace") which is a comprehensive guide to voting along the anti-war agenda, separating Labour’s doves from its hawks.

But BackingBlair.co.uk has given up on Labour completely. It urges people to "vote strategically, and ruthlessly. In ‘safe’ Labour seats, vote for the candidate most likely to beat the Labour candidate."

And this is a left-wing organisation. There are one or two anti-Tory groups, such as Howard’s End, which targets vulnerable Conservatives. But they lack the venom and energy once reserved for Major and Hague. Indeed, anti-Tory websites at large in the 2001 election - such as www.keepthetoriesout.co.uk - have disbanded. There is no obvious successor to www.stophague.com or www.voteswap2001.com.

While this is a poor proxy for the real world, it fits a trend - the appetite for hammering the Tories is sapping. And this may lead to its own harvest - an unwinding of the anti-Tory tactical vote from 1997 and 2001.

The absence of the hate factor could itself see the Tories win back about 35 seats, according to John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University - 21 from Labour and 14 from the Lib Dems.

Voters may become more sophisticated still and add a new dimension. Gillian Bowditch argued on this page yesterday that there is a growing British interest in moral issues.

IF SHE is right, then this could unleash a political force which defies party-political boundaries - and will tactically vote, for example, against any MP who wants to keep the current 24-week abortion limit.

The ghost of Pope John Paul II may indeed haunt the UK general election. Abortion is very much a political issue, and there is no better time to ask MPs where they stand than before an election.

But for Scots, there is a crucial drawback. The key to tactical voting is local knowledge - actually being aware if your constituency is a safe seat, and which challenger will best beat the incumbent. And in Scotland, the 72 old Westminster boundaries have just been drawn into 59 new constituencies. The MP that tactical voters have been waiting to get rid of may already have gone.

In fact, few Scots may know what constituency they are in. A handful will have checked the Boundary Commission for Scotland website - but many won’t know what their options are until reaching the polling station.

The citizens of Dundee East, for example, have found themselves propelled from a safe Labour seat with a 5,500 majority into a tightly-fought marginal which the SNP stands an excellent chance of winning.

So a diehard Unionist who usually votes Conservative may consider switching to Labour this time, simply to keep the SNP at bay ... but only if they work out which of the Dundee constituencies they live in.

The citizens of Tillicoultry were in a Labour stronghold at the last election: the SNP supporters in the old Ochil constituency may as well have stayed at home. But now, the new Ochil & South Perthshire is an SNP target.

For the normal voter, the new Scottish boundaries are confusing enough - for the tactical voter, a veil of smoke has been thrown over the whole issue. The political landscape is being obscured. Add that to the Anglo-centric election coverage spewed out by the London media, with talk of English foundation hospitals, and it becomes - for Scots - the most confusing election fought in modern democracy.

Help is at hand. Today, The Scotsman publishes a map of the new Westminster constituencies and summarises party policies. This will be followed by information on candidates, and where they stand - indeed, everything you need in order to come to a voting decision, tactical or otherwise, on the basis of all the facts.

With opinion polls showing the parties closer than at any point since John Major limped to victory in 1992, the election is looking more unpredictable by the hour - and more interesting than any party leader could have wished for.