Whoever is in power after the election will have to make hard choices about tax and spending. The boom years are over and we face a period of shrinking budgets and cut backs.

The choice we make on election day is how do we want those cuts made?

In the last round of county elections, Labour lost control of Nottingham County Council after a long spell in power and were replaced by a Conservative majority. Inevitably, priorities changed and cutting costs become the mantra of the council. Over the last 12 months, Nottinghamshire has become a microcosm of what we can expect should the Conservatives come to power.

One single issue in Nottingham illustrates the difference between Conservatives and everyone else - How we deal with the the weakest, most vulnerable people in our community.

Last Thursday, adverts appeared in the Guardian newspaper for the sale of a series of care homes in Nottingham. These currently belong to County Council and include the Sheila Gibson Unit. A mixed out-patients, in-patients and care home for people with Alzheimer's and dementia.

The Shelia Gibson Unit was rated as excellent in recent NHS audits and its integrated and long-term approach to care has been highly praised.

It is also the centre that cares for my Mother.

The staff there are everything you ask for. They are kind, patient and knowledgeable. They work with the families to find and provide the right level of care for both the patient and their families. It is a shinning beacon of what the NHS should be.

And the Tories want to sell it to the private sector. They want someone to make a profit out of caring for the weakest in society.

The Shelia Gibson Unit sits next to a posh golf club, on the edge of one of the more desirable areas of Nottingham. A new housing estate was built next door last year. Or to put it another way, whoever buys the Shelia Gibson Unit is sitting on a prime piece of real estate worth far more than a care home filled with low income people with dementia. The fate of this first class unit is obvious.

The council's own figures say that an inflation level increase in Council Tax would cost most households around £30 a year.

Just £30 a year would keep the Shelia Gibson Unit, along with all the other care homes and a host of other services, open. Only the Conservatives think that tax cuts for the better off is the right way forward and that selling care homes is the way to fund those tax cuts.

I admit I'm biased.

My Mother worked for nearly 40 years as a school teacher and was one of the first in the country to start specialising in dyslexia. As well as bringing up her own three children she fostered many different children for periods between a day and 11 years. At just 72, she is now a confused, frighten and incontinent old woman. Unable to perform even the most basic tasks for herself. I'm one of the few people she can still recognise. On a good day she knows my name.

It is easy to see why I'm angry when my Mother's health care is threatened.

But the centre is filled with people's mothers and fathers. Each just as deserving as my own and just as deserving as all the people who depend on home help, subsidised transport or the myriad of other services government provides.

All parties agree that belts will need to be tightened after the election. All the parties agree that life will get that little harder after the election. But only the Tories want to cut taxes for the well off and pay for it by depriving the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society.

That is what voting Conserative means.