There are numerous reasons why I would like to vote Conservative more than any of the other parties. It's an emotive issue and no matter what you say there will always be somebody there who disagrees with you and wants to tell you why your opinion is wrong, especially if you say something like "I actually quite like Cameron". Please see the TL;DR for my prediction about reactions to this post.
I'm a teacher - many think this automatically means I am liberal-left. Not really - many of my views are slap bang in the centre. I want to vote Conservative despite the dreadful way in which Gove has gutted my profession, and the awful prospect that the damage he has done, which is more and more apparent to those inside education, won't be really obvious for several years to everyone else, such is the "time drag" nature of education policies. Also, I was a teaching union representative, so I think I'm atypically Tory.
I tend to view the Tories as the "least bad" option of all the parties. No one party truly represents me. I make the time to read their policies and to actually listen to them and what they're saying at their conferences, so I think I'm as well informed as any "layperson". Why aren't I considering the others though?
Labour - while I think EM actually probably would be nowhere near as bad as popular opinion makes him out to be, the prospect of Ed Balls in number 11 terrifies me. I also wonder about their plans - I can't be the only one looking back at the 13 years of the most recent Labour government and thinking "a lot of the same people still exist high up in the party". I especially don't like the way that they seem to refuse to take any responsibility for certain things e.g. Zero hour contracts, a stick which they regularly beat the Coalition government with, existed under the New Labor government. They passed legislation in 98 and 99 to more clearly define and limit them but they didn't remove them. I think EM is right to place the NHS high up the priority list but I'm not overly convinced that any of the current parties are proposing anything other than something which is just ultimately yet more tinkering. I do agree with them that it should remain a non-privatised organisation though.
Lib Dems - I think their support has collapsed away - the "Clegg mania" effect from the 2010 debates and election has utterly died away and the weird backlash that occurred seemed to indicate that many Lib Dem supporters didn't understand that being in Coalition means you probably aren't going to get 100% of your manifesto through. I am waiting for the detail in their manifesto as I think they will be more realistic this time round. They are a party that, like the Greens, I really want to like, but I just can't see how they represent me.
UKIP - sorry, I think even if they keep on saying that they aren't a racist party, the continual stupid statements that keep coming from its members every other month would seem to indicate that they attract a good deal of people who are. It is a shame - the UK needs a proper right wing party that is not BNP/EDL STYLE far-right as a lot of our politics exists in a very centre/left of centre position, meaning that to an objective observer there isn't a great deal to chose from. However, UKIP is utterly centred around one man as well - Farage for all his faults actually has bags of charisma and is an oddly interesting politician. Without him at the centre of its media swirl I think UKIP would lose a lot of legitimacy and support right away. What does interest me though is the weird way in which they seem to bridge the left/right divide and in how they have taken chunks out of Labour in several places. I do wonder whether their momentum will fail in a full General election compared to the way it has been in By-elections.
SNP - can't vote for them, they're not standing south of the border, and even if I could, I wouldn't as I support the union. I kind of want to grab them by the collar, shake them a bit and point out to them that they lost the referendum, and not by a little bit, but by a clear margin with one of the biggest voter turnouts by percentage ever seen. In other words, the evidence is there - they hold the minority opinion on Scottish independence so stop trying to force it on everyone else. I am worried that they will try and get into coalition with Labour though, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why they should be allowed anywhere near Westminster in that way when the vast, vast majority of the population can't even vote for them or against them. I'm also pretty unsure of their policies - all I know is at the moment that every time I see Nicola Sturgeon on TV or hear her on the radio it feels like 50% of what she says is complaining about the Tories in Westminster (despite the fact it is a Tory/Lib Dem coalition...).
Greens - I want to like them. I don't know why, I just do. But then I look at their policies, read transcripts of speeches like the one Natalie Bennett gave the other day, and I just think "what?". Their policies seem to come from a place that can best be described as that phrase I see on reddit from time to time: "feels before reals". They are coming from the right place and for that I love them, but they are not yet a party that is fit for government. I think the Green Surge is more to do with the youth vote reaction against the rise of UKIP than anything else - they are often called the UKIP of the left, however incorrect that may be.
Sorry for the wall of text, I can't sleep and I've had these thoughts rattling around in my head for a few days now, this question seemed like as good a place as any to air my views?
TL;DR: down votes and predictably argumentative comments ahoy?
edited for formatting