This year’s party conference season has now finished, and attention turns to the General Election that will held some time between now and June. What that really means is that everyone’s thoughts are turning towards the prospect of the Conservatives being in power.

Many people now seem to be treating a Conservative election win as more-or-less a foregone conclusion. This is despite the fact that they still have slightly underwhelming opinion poll ratings. The Conservatives are not exactly getting an enthusiastic reception. It’s just that the other parties are disliked even more.

Something that the Tories have going for them at the moment is the announcement a couple of weeks ago that The Sun will be endorsing them at the next General Election. Truth be told, I was surprised on the one hand that they hadn’t already announced it. On the other hand, I was surprised at how early they had announced it. After all, it gives them plenty of time to change their minds between now and the election.

The Sun tends to back a winner, even though it is probably more of a case of being a weather vane rather than any sinister string-pulling from Rupert Murdoch. A few people I have spoken to think that it’s out of order for The Sun to be advising its readers how to vote. Maybe so, but the freedom of the press is vital to our democracy and they should be allowed to put it in their paper if they wish.

Some people note that people who buy The Sun are probably not buying it for sober and authoritative political analysis. That is true. But I actually think the Conservatives are a perfect match for The Sun. David Cameron and George Osborne would look great on Page 3. They are, after all, a massive pair of tits.

Putting aside whether a tabloid endorsement is something for an aspiring government to be proud about, what should we make of a potential Conservative government? Some on the left contend that no matter how bad Labour are, the Conservatives will always be worse. I do not quite agree with that.

If you ask me, the one thing scarier than a potential Conservative victory is a potential Labour victory. After all, given the turmoil of the past few years, just imagine what Labour would think if they could get away with it all. They would probably literally think that they could get away with actual murder. The thing is that they probably would get away with a lot — more than the Conservatives would anyway.

It has become common for people to say that Labour and the Conservatives have become similar to each other as far as policy goes. I don’t really agree with that. They are quite similar, but with Labour you get bonus ID cards and biometric anal probes. All-in-all, I doubt that a Conservative government would automatically be worse than another Labour one.

The most disconcerting thing about the Tories is not that they seem particularly nasty, but that they seem pretty vacuous at the moment. It may be a cliché to say that most people don’t know what David Cameron stands for. But you do get the sense that their manifesto will resemble some backs of envelopes and cigarette packets stuck together with Sellotape.

During all the talk recently about televised leaders’ debates, David Cameron seems to be the more eager between him and Gordon Brown to appear. But you wonder quite what he will find to say. With the lack of policies, I can half imagine him responding every time he is asked a question by saying, “that’s what she said!” It will probably make about as much sense.

For a lot of people, the Tories are the enemy because they are posh. Cameron and Osborne are the notable posh figures in Westminster, though Boris Johnson also comes in for a fair bit of stick on this front.

Some Conservative politicians are indeed quite ludicrously posh. For some people, this prevents them from representing the voters of Britain adequately because they lack empathy with the man on the street. But for me, a politician’s background is irrelevant. What matters is their capability for the job.

I have to confess to having a bit of a soft spot for Boris Johnson. I need to watch what I say here. I have been told off before for having an opinion on Boris Johnson because I am not a Londoner, so in fairness it is none of my damn business.

But I did once have the opportunity to vote for Boris Johnson. That was when he attempted to become Rector of Edinburgh University when I was a student a few years ago. He was the early favourite, but an intensely negative campaign from the student politics establishment played heavily on his posh image. This ensured that Boris Johnson not only failed to win the election, but he actually came third out of four candidates.

I should point out that Boris was not my first choice in the election. My preferred option was the former Scotsman editor Magnus Linklater, who finished second.

So who did we get as Rector instead? A man called Mark Ballard. I know what you’re probably thinking: who on earth is Mark Ballard? At the time, he was a Green Member of the Scottish Parliament. However, the general population was not quite so enamoured of him as the student population was and he has since lost his seat in the Scottish Parliament.

I have actually met Mr Ballard a couple of times and I can certainly say that he is a very pleasant chap. But ultimately he is a bit of a nobody, certainly in comparison to somebody like Boris Johnson. I mean, at Edinburgh University we could have had London’s Mayor as our university’s figurehead. As it was, we got someone who was rather worthy, but rather anonymous and a bit dull.

I don’t suppose there is necessarily anything wrong with that. But the mantra of “anyone but the Tories” surely isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Well I didn’t change my mind in the end. I came across this article by Magnus Linklater, my first preference.

“I have no intention of playing the Scottish card, of course,” he says, although I think he has. His campaign website is tartan (although it is actually quite a nice tartan, that rarest of things) and his slogan is ‘The Scottish candidate’.

I met him last week. He was wandering around Potterow handing out New Labour-style pledge cards. He seemed like a nice guy, although I didn’t speak to him because I had to crowbar my entire social life for that day in an hour… That’s longer than most days. I’ve thought long and hard about what I would ask him, and I decided it would be, “What’s Andrew Neil like in real life?” I bet he’s a prick.

My friends don’t seem to understand why I’ve chosen Boris Johnson as my second preference. They want me to vote for John Pilger instead (?????????????????). Well, he’s gone fourth. The other guy is a bit of a non-entity, and he is being supported by EUSA, and I’ve chosen Boris over Mark Ballard because of EUSA’s decision to waste time and money on campaigning against Boris. Because they represent the students, you see, so they are campaigning against the most popular candidate.

Actually, they are campaigning against one of the candidates. The one that is the most popular amongst students by far. It is student representation at its best.

After a heated debate the motion was passed with a majority of 14 to eight in what was a poorly attended vote.

EUSA’s President, Ruth Cameron, has quite a high profile, if you read the student papers that is. One writer in this week’s Student referred to her (sarcastically, although it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody started doing it for real soon) as our Glorious Leader. I wonder if she actually does any studenty stuff (studying for instance (yeah, seriously!)), because in the past few years she has edited both the independent Student Newspaper and EUSA’s own propaganda rag, Hype. And now she’s taking a proper year out to tell all the students what to think. She must really want to be either a journalist or a politician. Therefore she must be avoided.

The Students’ Representative Council has decided to campaign against Boris Johnson. Apparently it was an emergency motion, and “the first time EUSA has taken such a position since 1851.”

Why was it an emergency motion? Well, duh, it’s because Boris Johnson is, like, such a Tory, and students should only vote for lefties — it’s the law. Ruth Cameron has thrown her weight behind Green MSP Mark Ballard since the very beginning, when Ballard was the first confirmed candidate. Now that Boris Johnson has swanned in, it looks like Ballard is going to lose. So now the SRC has decided to use its power to campaign against Johnson using EUSA resources. Isn’t that a bit like Labour using taxpayers’ money to fund their General Election campaign?

It stinks. It is fine for the SRC members to hold and express their own opinions as to who they would prefer to have as Rector. Cameron’s views have been pretty clear from the outset, and was one of those who were protesting at the event last week where Boris Johnson got a pint spilled over him by the Socialist Society for being a “top-up Tory” (hmm, which party voted in top-up fees again?). That expression of her views is legitimate. But it has become official EUSA policy to oppose one of the candidates — and the one who seems to be by far the most popular at that. In what way is that “representing” the students?

EUSA are attempting to disguise this by saying that they aren’t campaigning against Boris Johnson, just against his policy in favour of top-up fees (an issue that doesn’t affect Scotland anyway). But if that’s the case, why don’t they just campaign against top-up fees instead of butting their nose into the Rectorial election? Never mind the fact that Boris Johnson would not be able to do anything about top-up fees if he became Rector. Something tells me that the fact that he is the Shadow Minister for Higher Education gives him slightly more influence in this field than the post of Edinburgh University Rector would.

If the idea of this campaign is to dissuade people from voting for Boris Johnson, I’m afraid the tactic hasn’t worked on me. Magnus Linklater will be my first choice, as he has been for a while now. Boris Johnson will probably be second. Mark Ballard could well be heading for the bottom of the pile though…

It would appear to be Boris Johnson, by a significant margin.

I was one of only four voters for Magnus Linklater, so I guess I don’t have much to be smug about.

At least Pilger has only one vote!

Via The Devil’s Kitchen and Mr Eugenides.

I’m not exactly sure what the whole point is. All the rector does, as far as I can make out, is write a little foreword in the prospectus.

Anyway, the candidates that I know of are:

• Mark Ballard — Green MSP, constantly tickling the clitoris of typical student lefty-liberals because it’s the only way he can get anybody to listen to him
• Boris Johnson — lovable cuddly Tory MP better known for his incredibly blonde hair than for doing anything useful
• John Pilger — weird journalist opinion-man. Nominated by Palestine Solidarity Society; tread with care
• Magnus Linklater — who?

This is who. This guy is my first choice already now because of that article. It turns out that he writes for The Times and Scotland on Sunday. Which will be why I’d never heard of him. He doesn’t even have an entry in Wikipedia.

Boris Johnson will probably be my second choice, and Mark Ballard third — assuming that these are all the nominations. I think I am right in thinking that we will be using the STV system, which means that I’ll be able to vote for all of the tossers instead of just the one.

Mark Ballard probably has the best chance; Robin Harper was Rector not too long back, and he has the support of EUSA’s president. Boris Johnson will probably get the irony-vote. Meanwhile, if People & Planet throw their weight behind Pilger there’ll probably be a lot of noise made about him as well.

Update: I began this post, “I don’t think,” though I thought the name was familiar. When I came off the computer I remembered this article, so I had heard of him before. I don’t think remembering he had a housefire and used to be an editor of The Scotsman changes my opinion.

Update: Candidates confirmed.