In China, there is no true democracy. Instead, the communist party governs the country in the name of the people. Of course, the people at the top of the pyramid of government are able, without difficulty, to take advantage of their position. But in such a huge country, many towns and cities are a long way from Beijing and central party control. So then, not only are the people at the centre able to take advantage of the system, but the local party bosses, a long way away, can engage in corrupt practices as well.

The ordinary people in those areas are complaining more and more about this sort of thing and central government responded some years ago by making corruption not only a crime, but a crime punishable by death.  But despite the actual imposition of the ultimate penalty on a number of occasions, corruption is still endemic in the system.

Democracy is, of course, by no means a panacea. We too have had our examples of corruption, although not on a really grand scale - duck houses and moat cleaning do not come into the same league as some of the fortunes made by various local officials in China.  At least in a democracy, however, we the people can deprive our representatives of their positions of power more easily than in a totalitarian regime.

But we are now facing an election. And we have to decide whether to vote and how to vote. Whether to vote is for me quite simple. I lose nothing apart from a few minutes of my time by voting and, as a fan of the idea of democracy, I feel an obligation to vote if at all possible.

How to vote, however, is always more difficult as I have no party allegiance, although there used to be a fringe party called the ‘Let's have a party Party', which Heather and I both quite liked.  But it will be difficult also for those who have traditionally voted for one party or another.  Why? Because the party divisions now exist in little more than name.  And there is a lot of name calling.  The thing is that we have reached a point in our history where there are no really important overarching themes peculiar to a particular party or any real philosophy by which we can tell them apart.  New Labour expressly took on the Conservatives' financial plans for the two years following the election in 1997 and then became even more conservative, with a religious dedication to Private Finance Initiatives etc, Academies and Foundation hospitals.

Yes, each party pays lip-service to certain traditions, but when you look at the detail of what they are saying, it is essentially the same thing.  They each think that the less advantaged social groups should be helped. They each think that the free market is necessary.  And they each have focus groups to tell them what we would like them to say to us.  To maintain traditional stances can hardly be justified when the original reason for their existence has long since disappeared, but what we have now is a battle as to which we think is likely to be the best party to manage the economy. Bring back the Monster Raving Loony Party.

So how am I supposed to chose between the parties based on their skills as managers or economists? After all, economists disagree amongst themselves.  We have had the spectacle of 20 economists writing to one newspaper to suggest rapid repayment of our national debt as proposed by the Conservatives and 60 writing to another paper to suggest that the Labour approach is correct.  If we go on numbers, then Labour wins.  On the other hand, it was the majority of economists who were wrong in their assessment of the financial crisis and a tiny majority of them who were correct in warning of dire things to come.  I think that this means that as an ordinary voter, I have no prospect of deciding on the best economic policy.

And then we look at their management capability.  That of the opposition parties is completely untested.  The government's management skills leave me unimpressed.  So how can I rationally choose between them on such grounds? I have no idea.