It's a simple choice!

The apparent plethora of televised debates seems to have caused more confusion than clarity. Never before has the electorate been given such choice. But the reality is that the decision about who should run the country for the next five years is simple.

A change of government is akin to the handing over of the baton in a relay race. In this instance we got off to a shaky start but thanks to a solid second leg and an impressive third, we are coming to the hand over point with a slight lead over our rivals and it seems that the runner of the final leg needs only to get hold of the baton and keep our momentum in order for us to win the race. So who do we have to run that final leg?

Ignore some of the candidates. UKIP were thought to have potential but spent so long arguing about the entry criteria that their man has fallen too far behind. Plaid Cymru and the SNP are too intent on worrying about whether these are national or international championships and the Greens have stopped running because of the damage it causes to the track. We're pretty sure that the LibDems started but they seem to have disappeared so we have only two candidates: the Tories and Labour. How to choose?

Just look at the form. When the Labour runner was last handed the baton by the Tories in 1997, against the background of a stable and growing economy and sound fiscal constraint, what happened? They didn't simply lose the race; they ended up going backwards and dropping the baton before rounding the final bend. By contrast when the Tories were given the baton in 2010 in a desperate position with no real hope of victory, they not only grasped it but ran past the opposition and achieved the most unlikely of victories.

So on May 7th think only of who you trust to carry the baton home and win the race. The Labour runner may claim to have learned from his past mistakes and plead to be given another chance, and you may think that the Tory is a touch too smooth for his own good, but look at their past performance. On that basis, I suggest, there is really only one choice if you want to win the race.