Here’s my guide to the main characters of this year’s edition of reality-drama series General Election…

Theresa May – Conservative Party

Don’t judge a book by its cover. A goon is a goon is a goon. If it quacks, it’s probably a duck. All pertinent proverbs when it comes to our incumbent champ. If Theresa wasn’t an obnoxious, pig-headed, blinkered, greying mare from the infamous iron stable – say she was a child-faced shirt called George – then all her ineptitudes and out-of-touch yesteryear soundbites and strategies would be a death knell for the party.

Verdict: Look around you. Chances are, unless you live in a commune, most of your fellow citizens yearn for a fearless matriarch. Maybe you even think you’ve been too naughty yourself. Odds on favourite.

Jeremy Corbyn – Labour Party

For every neglected and subsequently self-seeking and hedonistic baby-boomer who yearns for a stern mother figure to fill a void in their heart, there is a paradoxically submissive and self-righteous, responsibility-repelling Millennial who has never uncoupled themselves from dependency. Step forward a cross between ‘Our Gracious Leader’ and ‘Daddy’. Probably more surprised than anyone to be woken up in 2015, Corbyn seems to think a manifesto is a chance to outline his own utopia. His reluctant philosopher-king demeanour is refreshing and disconcerting in equal measure.

Verdict: Want to change everything? Want to ignore concepts such as practicality and pragmatism? Don’t worry, Daddy’s an infallible superhero. If the weather’s good on Election Day, expect everyone’s optimism levels to rocket and buy into it. Dark horse.

Tim Fallon – Liberal Democrats

It’s not a good omen when you have to Google a party leader. The face I had in my head wasn’t Tim Fallon, it was the guy I sometimes see on the bus, the one reading the sports pages of the local newspaper. His appointment makes logical sense: a party on a downward curve, haemorrhaging support like a flatulent salesman, fronted by someone whose image can only improve. That he’s no longer a gay-bashing Christian radical means he is GETTING BETTER! Wow, the Lib Dem holy grail!

Verdict: No chance but no worse. Might get votes from those mistaking him for a famous jockey. Might lose votes from those mistaking him for a famous jockey who also have a distrust of midgets.

Caroline Lucas & Jonathan Bartley – Green Party

Once you get over the fact that together their names sound like the singers of an eighties power ballad, there’s a lot to like about the party’s policies… if you can be bothered to read them. If any party is in need of an image makeover it’s the Greens. If a party was called the Midget Equality Party, who’s going to vote for them? Who is going to give a monkeys? Midgets. Midget haters. Voting is a self-interested act; people want to vote for someone who represents them. If you’re not an eco-warrior, it’s hard to care enough to find out more.

Verdict: When we’re all fighting at the pumps for the last £1000 litre of petrol to get us home to our intermittently powered homes where we wring our rain-watered underwear into our gullets for basic hydration, they will win by a landslide.

Nicola Sturgeon – Scottish Nationalist Party

Being English, her prominence in UK politics has piqued my interested in the eponymous fish more than the politician. Did you know that the largest recorded sturgeon was a whopping 7.2m in length? Not a figure that is likely to change overnight. Nor, unfortunately, is the other Sturgeon’s obsession with a second independence referendum. Two things irritate me about indyref2. Firstly, the insistence of it being referred to as ‘indyref2’. It sounds like the name of a crap website. Or a bureaucratic procedure from a Kafka novel. Secondly, you must be a bit of a moron to centre your whole pitch on something that 45% of Scottish voters don’t want. There must be some more common ground than that… like tangible policies that have an innate connection with happiness and equality.

Verdict: Don’t expect this Strugeon to produce caviar any time soon.

Some Effer Jeffer - UKIP

I am aware of their existence and plight, but switch off almost immediately due to my hatred of the colour purple.

Verdict: It’s time for everyone to embrace the UBLIP and mauve on.

The Welsh / The Irish / The Independents

To understand the motivations of these candidates would require research worthy of attaining a History A Level. If you know why (or why not) to vote for them, you will (or won’t).

Verdict: A few will win seats and enjoy their trips to the Big Smoke and decry that all the other politicians are patronising loons from the planet Clueless. But no one will ever know what they are saying without the aid of subtitles when watching BBC Parliament at 3am.

This month's favourites:
   Britta Persson, If I Was a Band My Name Would Be Forevers
   Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
   Bicycle Thieves (1948)