Mark Steel: We must end the suffering of all those poor Labour addicts

'In 2037, people will say: "Blair's cautious because he's waiting to be radical in the vital 11th term" '

At the end of all this, how many people will have voted for anything they really want?

William Hague is like some desperate bloke who's been unsuccessfully pestering a woman to go out with him and then pleads: "All right, I admit I'm a wanker, but what about sleeping with me just the once anyway? Oh go on, to stop your boyfriend being so arrogant. Keep him on his toes, burst his bubble."

While Tony Blair depends on millions behaving like parents who can't think how to deal with their unruly kids. For the attitude of many people preparing to vote Labour is: "Right, this is the last time. And I'm warning you, if you privatise one more thing I'll, I'll, I'll, well, that'll be it and you'll get your very last warning."

The argument from some people, such as the trade union leaders, is that they can influence him. Which they could. As long as they leave their union and get on to the board of Balfour Beatty instead.

Then there are people who convince themselves that Blair will be better next time. He had to do all that stuff with tuition fees and asylum-seekers and sticking to Tory spending figures because it was only his first term. In the year 2037 there will be people saying: "Aha, but Blair's being cautious now because he's waiting for the chance to be really radical in the vital 11th term."

In any case, he's going to have to be much more egalitarian in his second term than he's promising in order just to reverse the things that he's done in the first term. At the next election he'll say: "I know that some of you think that we haven't done enough in the last four years, but you can't expect us to undo the damage we did in the previous four years all in one go."

Very little of what New Labour stands for is popular, yet Blair will win millions of votes on the basis that nothing else is possible. Some will stay at home, though, as many people have said, this is a tragedy as people fought for centuries for the right to vote.

But one of the few exciting stories of this election, largely untold, is the emergence of the Socialist Alliance/Scottish Socialist Party as a credible alternative to Labour. Some people have commented that these groups represent the left having come together, but they're more than the left.

For example I spoke at a meeting in Hove, posh Sussex Hove, at which there were 120 people. If the meeting had been confined to the left, the organiser would have said "Marvellous, that's everyone" when the third person arrived. And what would the traditional far left have to say to the people of Hove? "We must nationalise the arts-and-crafts centre and we must collectivise the bowling green."

After a meeting in Glasgow last week, one hundred people joined the Scottish Socialist Party in 10 minutes. If this was the old-fashioned far left, the organisers would have reminded everyone that no group should get to more than 20 members, and insisted that the new recruits divide into five warring factions.

But the enthusiasm for the SA/SSP extends into areas that would have been deemed eternally Labour until recently. Some unions are backing the new parties, as are hundreds of disaffected Labour activists. The reason is that, on many issues, a majority finds the policies more attractive than those of New Labour, particularly when it comes to renationalising the railways. Some may say we would then have to address the issue of compensation, which is true. So when the policy's worked out in detail, we'll be able to declare how much compensation Railtrack and Virgin will have to pay for inflicting years of misery on the rest of us.

The proposal to raise the top rate of tax to 63 per cent, which would yield £16bn a year, is derided as extremist. Though this was the top rate of tax during the first nine years of Thatcher's rule. So it's no wonder Blair warns of the dangers of returning to the Thatcher years ­ they were too egalitarian for him. He must think: "The woman was a bloody commie, she set her tax rates at the level demanded by the Socialist Alliance, you know."

So the choice for many is between voting enthusiastically for a party unlikely to win seats, or going: "Tut phoo, oh well, one more time, at least it will keep Widdecombe out." People tempted to make the second of these choices should be aware that doing something out of a habit you no longer enjoy simply because you fear feeling even worse if you don't is classic addiction behaviour. "One more time," they say, don't they all, but they need to take the first step and admit their problem.

Maybe they should ask themselves: "If not now, what is the bottom line? How far would they have to go before I pulled the plug?" A healthy vote for the new parties would be an enormous boost to anyone willing to oppose the privatisation and other scandals being prepared. Check with the neighbours how they're voting first though, because we don't want to become arrogant if there's a Socialist Alliance landslide.