Why my life-long Christian Socialist partner is voting Conservative tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Thursday 7 May, my partner for the last 13 years will do something for the first time. A lifelong Christian Socialist and former member of the Labour Party, Steve will be voting Conservative. 

In truth, this is actually the second time he has voted Conservative - but the first time was at the Rochester & Strood By Election when he would have voted for whichever party was best placed to stop Mark Reckless.  

Tomorrow he will be voting Conservative because he wants the Conservative Party to win and for David Cameron to remain Prime Minister. 

This is not some Damascene conversion. Nor has he switched allegiance under pressure from me or for a peaceful life at home. He remained a Socialist and voted Labour for 12 of the 13 years we have been together. 

His change is due to two things

• He wants to vote on Britain's membership of the EU and he knows that only one party can realistically offer that, and
• He simply doesn't trust Labour with Britain's economy. 

Many years ago I accepted that we would probably never agree politically and whilst we talked about politics we resolved to never let such differences divide us.  I am not going to say I am proud of him for changing his politics as I am proud of him regardless of how he votes. 

However, it speaks volumes for the state of today's Labour Party when a man as committed to Labour's cause as he was, who happily voted Labour under Kinnock, Blair and even Gordon Brown, now feels he cannot vote for them under Miliband and Balls.