So, here we are then. The General Election is upon us, and it’s time for us all to cast our vote.

To put my own decision-making process into proper perspective, let me take you on a brief tour of my voting history.

I’ve been able to legally vote since the 1983 election, which came two months after my 18th birthday.

I voted then for Margaret Thatcher. I liked her no-nonsense style and her leadership during the Falklands War.

Piers Morgan: Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, wouldn’t inspire me to open a crisp packet. They’re three middle-class, middle-aged, well-heeled posh, white boys who all look, dress and sound the same

I voted for her again in 1987 because I had just joined The Sun as a show-business reporter and any staff member caught voting for Neil Kinnock would have been deemed ‘unfit for purpose’ by the paper’s virulently pro-Thatcher editor Kelvin MacKenzie and burned at the stake in a Wapping dungeon.

I voted for John Major in 1992 because he seemed a very decent chap, an opinion I still hold to this day. And because Kelvin’s wrath if he discovered I’d voted for Kinnock this time would have made a dungeon stake-burning look like a Frozen convention.

Then, in 1997, like many, I became infected with New Labour-itis.

I was, by then, an Editor myself, of the party’s preferred press organ, the Daily Mirror, and had become quite close to Tony Blair.

The leaders of the three main parties, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, wouldn’t inspire me to open a crisp packet. None of these men seem to have a Scooby Doo what real Britain is like any more. They talk in exactly the same cliché-d platitude-ridden way that party leaders talked 30 years ago Piers Morgan on Cameron, Miliband and Clegg

He seemed a breath of fresh air; a smart, articulate, very modern and inspiring young man with a clear vision for a ‘Cool Britannia’ moulded in the same image.

I voted for him again in 2001 because I believed he had delivered on most of his promise, and had demonstrably made Britain a better place to live.

Those who reject this premise now are jaundiced by what came next. It’s easy to forget what a good Prime Minister Blair was for quite a long period of time.

But then came Iraq.

We fell out over the War – the Mirror vociferously opposed this senseless, unethical and illegal conflict before, during and after the 2003 invasion.

I refused to vote for Blair in 2005 as a result. It was my small way of registering my protest at his war-mongering.

In 1997, like many, I became infected with New Labour-itis. I was, by then, an Editor myself, of the party’s preferred press organ, the Daily Mirror, and had become quite close to Tony Blair. But then came Iraq.

That was thus the one election in my eligible lifetime where I didn’t vote at all. Something I regretted from the moment the polling booths shut.

Half my family have served in the military, risking their lives in conflicts from World War 2 and Northern Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan.

We all owe it to them and others who fight for our democratic freedoms to vote.

To simply not bother, whether from a sense of protest or otherwise, is an unconscionable dereliction of duty, if not an act of outright cowardice.

In the last election, in 2010, I voted for Gordon Brown. A thoroughly good, fiercely intelligent man – full declaration, he’s been a personal friend for two decades - who never got the credit he deserved for saving us from financial obliteration when the greedy banks all began collapsing like dominoes.

In the last election, in 2010, I voted for Gordon Brown. A thoroughly good, fiercely intelligent man who never got the credit he deserved for saving us from financial obliteration when the greedy banks all began collapsing like dominoes

When I look back at my voting pattern, I see one clear theme: leadership.

Or rather, my sense of who was the strongest leader, with the best strategy for improving Britain.

Politics is like anything in life. It’s only as strong as the people immersed in it.

And frankly, I’ve never known such a paucity of it in the UK political arena.

The leaders of the three main parties, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, wouldn’t inspire me to open a crisp packet.

They’re three middle-class, middle-aged, well-heeled posh, white boys who all look, dress and sound the same.

Yet Britain is now one of the most diverse, multi-cultural countries in the world. A fact of which we should be tremendously proud.

None of these men seem to have a Scooby Doo what real Britain is like any more. They talk in exactly the same cliché-d platitude-ridden way that party leaders talked 30 years ago.

I cringe when I watch Miliband struggle to ‘be normal’ and eat a simple bacon sandwich. Or erect some ridiculous Moses-style tablet with his vacuous, meaningless pledges. Or try and pretend that politically stabbing his brother in the front, back and scalp wasn’t the single greatest act of treachery Westminster has ever seen.

I groan at the sight of Cameron pulling up his sleeves and start shouting to try and prove he has passion when it’s clear he has about as much genuine passion in him as a neutered Aardvark.

I also saw at first hand how rapidly and enthusiastically Cameron threw a close, trusted friend who helped get him elected (Andy Coulson) to the wolves and disowned him for pure, selfish political expediency. As with Miliband’s shocking treatment of his brother David, this proved Cameron’s a peculiarly soulless little weasel. Not a man you’d trust with the family silver.

Clegg? I just look at him and feel a sense of utter derision.

We all remember his adverts in 2010 promising an ‘end to broken promises’.

And we all remember that the moment he grabbed a sniff of power in a shameless piece of political adultery with the Tories, he reneged on his own biggest promise – an end to tuition fees.

Clegg’s just as big a treacherous liar as the people he dared to scorn, which is why his Party will be decimated in this election.

UKIP has been exposed for what it is, a nasty little Party for deluded Little Englanders.

Its beer-swilling leader, Nigel Farage, will probably lose his bid to win a seat – a just reward for a disastrous campaign that proved to be almost as painful as his cricked back.

When I heard him say that foreigners with HIV shouldn’t be wasting our NHS money, I realised Farage really is as vile as I thought. Good riddance.

The Greens’ leader Natalie Bennett is an Australian – never a good idea in an Ashes year - whose car-crash interviews have become a template in how not to speak in public.

How can we trust her to save the planet, when she can’t even string a sentence together?

The SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon is the only candidate who can justly lay claim to have had a good campaign.

The SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon is the only candidate who can justly lay claim to have had a good campaign.

She’s undeniably feisty and impressive, has a sense of purpose and has destroyed Labour in Scotland with the same devastating success that William Wallace saw off the English at Stirling Bridge.

But I couldn’t vote for Ms Sturgeon even if I wanted to – and I don’t, because she’d get rid of our nuclear deterrent, which would make us sitting ducks to any nuked-up terrorist group – as she’s not standing as an MP and there is no SNP candidate in my constituency of Kensington in West London.

Which brings me back to my own vote.

The choice in Kensington is: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, UKIP, the Alliance for Green Socialism (sounds like something even Wolfie Smith would reject as too left-wing), the New Independent Centralists (I could never vote for any party whose name is incomprehensible even to Stephen Hawking) and an organisation called Cannabis is Safer Than Alcohol – a premise with which I happen to agree, but my mother would garotte me if I voted for them.

The final option is the Animal Welfare Party, which campaigns for animal rights, environment and health. In Kensington, it is a man called Professor Andrew Knight, pictured. After much deliberation, I’ve decided to vote for him and his party

The final option is the Animal Welfare Party, which campaigns for animal rights, environment and health.

It is only fielding four candidates in this election, all of them in London. In Kensington, it is a man called Professor Andrew Knight – one of the country’s most eminent vets who has dedicated 20 years of his life to improving the often gruesome lot of animals in our supposed ‘Nation of Animal Lovers’.

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to vote for him and his party.

‘What a cop out!’ I hear you cry.

But the whole point of a free and democratic election is that each individual is allowed to vote for the party that he or she genuinely believes will make the biggest, most beneficial difference to the country.

And by voting for the Animal Welfare Party, I know I will achieve two things.

The first is that it will make my late, fabulous and deeply beloved Grandmother very happy.

She loved animals more than most humans, and considered all politicians – as she did anyone in authority - to be a bunch of ‘po-faced little pocket Hitlers’ with the exception of Sir Winston Churchill, who of course defeated a real po-faced little pocket Hitler.

Second, I know that by writing this column and publicly declaring my vote, it will directly raise considerable much-needed awareness, and thus extra funding, for the AWP.

That will almost certainly mean more animal lives get saved and improved.

So my vote will actually mean something, and make a genuine difference.

Can any of us, hand on heart, after THIS dreary, tedious, lame and tortured election campaign, say the same thing about a vote for any of the main parties?