Comment from The Northern Echo - Today, it's up to you. Just do it - vote

This morning, when you walk into the polling booths, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat and all the other parties are level pegging on zero.

There is no Labour landslide, there is no Conservative wipeout, there is no LibDem opposition, there is no loud call for European withdrawal from the UK Independence Party.

Today, it is up to you - up to us all - to create those headlines or to destroy those myths.

So, in the words of the advert, just do it. Create those headlines. Destroy those myths. Just do it. Vote.

And please, don't use the lazy excuse that you can't be bothered because all the parties are the same. The campaign, for all its boredom, has made it clear that there are some very real differences.

The Tories will cut taxes - but in doing so do you believe they can improve the standards of our public services? Labour will not cut taxes - but does its record suggest that it can improve those standards? The LibDems will raise taxes - but is money alone the answer to our problems?

If that isn't enough, the choice goes wider still. Should we, in a global world, withdraw from Europe, or do we accept that all the centre-ground parties have failed and old-fashioned socialism is the future?

The choice is indeed great. Just make it. Vote.

Vote, if only so that you have the right to carp and criticise, or to say "told you so", as the beneficiaries of your choice perform over the course of the next Parliament. Just do it. Vote.

But which way? In our opinion, there is little alternative. The weakness of the opposition means it has to be Labour.

This is not a ringing endorsement. Labour has been frustratingly slow to move the country forward. It may be justified in saying that it has had to be slow and prudent, that it has had to get the economics right before it could begin to change things.

That, though, is of little consequence to those who still teach and learn in crumbling classrooms, or to those who are failed - sometimes fatally - by the National Health Service.

This is where the frustration comes from, and it was so eloquently voiced by Sharron Storer, the partner of a cancer patient, when she confronted Tony Blair outside a hospital in Birmingham on the day of John Prescott's infamous punch.

But Ms Storer didn't vote in 1997 and says she won't vote today. She refuses to make any choices. She refused to listen to Mr Blair's attempted justification and now she refuses to say how she feels Britain should move forward. If she doesn't care enough to make the choice, what democratic right does she have to criticise when other people get the choice wrong? Just do it, Sharron. Vote.

That day was probably the most interesting of the campaign. The others have seemed so boring to so many because much of the country made up its mind months ago that Labour required a second term to prove that things can only get better.

The country judged months ago that, in its first term, Labour has not done a huge amount seriously wrong - it cannot have done if the main accusation against it is that it has been frustratingly slow. In fact, the country knows that it has made a start. Look at the classrooms, at the hospitals that are springing up all over the North-East. Look at the economy - always a Labour bugbear. Look at the minimum wage.

Indeed, this may have been be a ringing endorsement of Labour had not the nation's expectations been so unfeasibly high on that heady day in May 1997, and had Labour not been so fixated with spin rather than substance over the past four years..

After 18 years of Conservative rule, Britain knew it was time for a change. But, just as sleaze damaged the Conservatives, continued obsession with spin can damage Labour. If Labour does win a second term, it has to ditch the spin and begin delivering substantially on the promises it has made to the electorate.

We have to ask whether the Conservatives listened since their defeat in 1997? Judging by this campaign - which is very different from the positive, inclusive way that William Hague started out as leader - the answer is no.

Four years ago, we suggested defeat for the Tories would give them time to rebuild and refresh. The truth is - and the Tories themselves know it deep down - that the rebuilding is far from finished.

They have fundamentally misjudged the mood of the nation and have done little to bring Labour to account for its frustrating slowness. Take their main - their only - campaigning points: asylum, the euro, tax and a Labour landslide.

True, Britain does not like unwarranted asylum-seekers. But we are not frightened of them. We can reform our system.

True, Britain does not like the prospect of the euro or of greater European integration. But we are not scared of the single currency or of our neighbours. We know we can work with them, shape the future with them positively. And we know we are not so stupid as to fall for a rigged referendum question if it is ever put to us.

And true, we do not like paying taxes. No one does. But we are not so nave as to believe that you can get a better health service or improved education without paying for it.

And no, we don't like the prospect of a Labour landslide - a prospect with which Mr Hague is lately trying to scare us. A landslide would not be healthy for democracy. Equally, to support an opposition that is undeserving out of fear of that landslide would make a mockery of democracy.

Beyond these fear factors, why else have the Tories suggested we should make them our choice as an alternative to Labour's frustrating slowness? On education, their plan to endow universities is incomplete and their "free schools" policy is full of contradictions: how would local education authorities, shorn of their responsibilities and resources, go about providing schooling for those children that the free market schools have decided they don't want?

On regional issues, it is hard to see how local council competing against local council, with private enterprise regeneration companies and strange co-ordinating groups muddying the waters, could possibly provide the regional vision or strategy that the North-East needs if it is to find long-term replacements for industries like Corus.

Here, we should refer to Labour's one specifically regional policy: the creation of directly-elected regional assemblies. The idea is, superficially at least, attractive. We await the detailed proposals with great interest and we shall be involved in the consultations. If we do not like what comes of them, we shall reject them in a referendum.

No, we are not scared of a regional layer of government if we are convinced that it will benefit the North-East.

Labour at least offers that choice. The Conservatives offer no more than admiration for Mr Hague's unflagging resilience. But, by common consent, Charles Kennedy has had the best campaign of the leaders. Exploiting the moral high ground given to him because he is the leader of the third party, he has shown dignity, sensitivity and sureness of foot. He has moved his party on from the days of Paddy Ashdown - it is no longer the anti-Tory party for those who cannot bring themselves to vote Labour. It is now the true party of the Left.

Yet the North-East, with its stratospheric Labour majorities, is in 2001 infertile ground. By and large, bar the odd marginal and Mr Hague's seat, this is Labour territory.

And there is no reason for that territory to rebel. Labour has made a start. There is more, much more, to do. It must shake off its frustrating slowness and implement its much talked about long-term plans for health, education, crime and transport.

Today, you can give it the impetus. You can, if you like, give it a second chance in a second term.

Labour must then deliver, just as you, today, must deliver your vote. Consider the arguments, and then just do it. Vote.