With the general election coming up, the old question resurfaces – do I vote for the party that best represents me; or do I vote for the one that might actually make a difference?

If they are one and the same; brilliant! You probably don’t need to read this article. Get back to your work. If you are like me and have your qualms, however, then there is a dilemma to be faced. This article is written from my left-leaning political perspective, but the problem applies across the board.

I recently wrote an article for The Tab bemoaning the state of student party politics. My point was essentially that the only student movement on the left that was making a difference was the Labour society, but I could not bring myself to get involved because I did not feel that Labour accurately represented my views. The article was sensationalist and perhaps poorly researched, and my, did it get taken to the cleaners. The Labour Society’s official response was to accuse me of idealism and laziness, rather snarkily remarking that "I'm sure the scores of people who are suffering from the bedroom tax, cuts to public services, and underemployment, and who are reliant on food banks, will be very sympathetic to [my] plight."

I’m not writing this article to get my own back, because annoyingly, they’re right. For the left, Labour are the party best situated to stop the Conservatives in their tracks. In their upcoming manifesto, Labour will no doubt profess fairness (next best thing to equality) and social justice and higher standards of living for ordinary people and keeping the NHS. That’s all great, but they have thus far been fairly quiet with regards to the cuts they plan to make, and since they’ve already stated that they won’t raise taxes and plan to make a budget surplus by 2019, we can’t expect a radical break from current Tory practice.

I can grudgingly understand that in our post-Keynesian world, austerity might be an economic necessity, but a few of Labour’s policies I simply abhor. Their criticism of the Conservatives over their ‘lax’ immigration policy is frankly depressing. They have accepted the paradigm set by UKIP and the Tories that immigration is bad for our economy, which I personally think is rubbish. What’s more, I cannot bring myself to trust Labour to fulfil their promises once in power – as it stands, they seem to vacillate between whichever policy is most popular at a given time (yes, I know this is how politics works).

The party I have most in common with is the Greens. Let’s not kid ourselves, they’ll be lucky to get three seats, and probably won’t change the course of British politics, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth voting for. Their best use is probably as a protest – if Labour sees a significant portion of their vote go to another party, they will alter their policies accordingly in an attempt to win them back.

This tactic will be especially important in 2015. The Lib Dems have fallen from grace, at least with students; and the Greens are struggling to be taken seriously as a national party, evidenced by their lack of representation in the BBC debates. Labour will essentially hold a monopoly over mainstream left-wing politics. They can rest assured that left-wing people will vote for them as a better alternative to the Tories, because there are no other options. Their policies will therefore be aimed at the centre, to try to swing Conservative voters.

As such, there is certainly a case to vote for a smaller party to stop Labour getting complacent. The real dilemma is whether it’s more important to send a message to Labour this election, or to acknowledge that real people are really suffering under the Conservatives and any alleviation that Labour can offer would be the best option.

Personally, I’d choose the former, partly because I’m a Cambridge academic and out of touch with the actual world, but also because I don’t think Labour will get elected this time around anyway (Ed Milliband, I’m afraid) so why not use the opportunity to exercise my democratic rights and show what I actually believe? Feel free to disagree.