by Charles Shaar Murray The Guardian Saturday 19 May 2001

Once upon a time, soul singer Bobby Womack told me of a unique sales pitch put to him by his mentor, Sam Cooke, concerning a putative publishing deal. "I'm screwing you," Cooke told Womack, "but I'm screwing you with grease. James Brown would screw you with sand."

For some reason, this anecdote comes to mind when contemplating the spectacle of Labour and the Tories once again squaring up at the ballot box. Is the prospect of getting screwed with grease, rather than sand, the best that the democratic process can offer us?

On the eve of the 1997 election, I was one of a large posse of individuals canvassed for their voting intentions by the New Statesman. Like the vast majority of respondents, I announced my intention to vote Labour, just as I had done at every single election, local and national, for the last thirty years.

"And when [Labour] are elected," I concluded, "I hope they remember who elected them. And why." This they plainly have not done. Naturally, I wasn't expecting New Labour to deliver fully-blown socialism, red in tooth and claw: all I wanted was an ordinary semi-decent Labour government which would enact in office the policies which they demanded in opposition.

After all, if I was in favour of privatised air traffic control, a widening gap between rich and poor, low spending on public services, a Prime Minister who boasted about the tightest labour laws in Europe, a beady-eyed, foaming-mouthed, refugee-bashing Home Secretary and a set of social policies sufficiently right-wing to upset Roy Hattersley, Hugo Young and Will Hutton I could have voted Tory. I was under the impression that I'd voted Labour. What I seem to have voted for was a rebadged version of the SDP.

Which is why, for the first time in a general election, I am taking my vote elsewhere. More precisely, to the newly-formed Socialist Alliance. Often maligned in the New Labour interest as a mere 'gaggle of Trots', the SA is made up of a wide spectrum of groups and individuals who are, broadly speaking, to the left of the government, ranging from outside-left organisations to disgruntled Labour activists - many of whom have given decades' worth of sterling service to the party - and stroppy independents like myself who have never joined any political party.

I can sympathise with New Labour's desire to demolish everything to their right - personally, I'd love to see the Tories vaporised to the point where the Lib Dems become the main opposition party - but I'm perturbed by their equally driven need to silence everything to their left. As Rev Blair proclaims his loyalty to big business and dismisses the arguments of the growing anti-capitalist movement as 'spurious', it's time someone made a big loud noise to Labour's left.

And the 'Nader/splitter' argument won't wash. In this election? Puh-leeeeeze. The Tories aren't getting in. If you can't bring yourself to vote for these creeps again, then don't stay away from the ballot box on June 7. Vote Socialist Alliance, and let the government know that it isn't just Daily Mail readers whom they need to please.

After all, New Labour have stolen the Tories' clothes so comprehensively that all they have left behind is a pair of grubby, threadbare Union Jack boxer shorts. And it looks like Barbara Roche has her eye on those.