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Do you know who you are going to vote for? If so, do you know why? Do you know what promises each party has made in its manifesto? I ask because one of the peculiarities of the December 2019 general election is that the two biggest parties are reluctant to give you clear information before you make your choice.

If Labour wins, for example, we don't know which side of the Brexit debate the Corbyn-led government will be on.

We know the party now promises to hold a referendum but they won't say whether the new prime minister would opt for the new withdrawal agreement he plans to negotiate, or support the UK simply remaining an EU member as his senior team of Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Diane Abbott would like.

Boris Johnson is promising to deliver the deal he struck with the EU, but has already said he will reject part of it - the possibility that the so-called transition period could last three years.

To the delight of Nigel Farage, he says he will take the UK out of the transition, come what may, at the end of 2020.

If the Conservative Party leader really means that statement, then leaving without a trade agreement may just have been postponed for a year.

These are examples of important technical matters that could well affect how someone votes, but which can be easily dodged in a soundbite such as "Get Brexit done" or "Let the people decide now they know what Brexit means".

Manifestos force parties to come clean about what they promise to do.

Party manifestos have a quasi-constitutional importance. Under the Salisbury Convention of 1911, the House of Lords will not obstruct something included in the general election winning party's manifesto.

How to draw up Labour's manifesto is written into the party's basic law. This weekend there is a meeting under clause five of its constitution.

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The National Executive Committee and representatives of the parliamentary party, constituencies and trade unions will assemble to agree the document, which is due for publication next week.

It remains to be seen if "the longest suicide note in history" in 1983 will be repeated.

Back then, right-wing MPs opposed to Michael Foot's leadership actively encouraged the inclusion of extreme policies in the manifesto in the confident - and as it turned out correct - assumption that they would be buried alongside Foot's dreams of victory.

In 2019, the mighty Unite union boss Len McCluskey plans to water down this year's party conference resolution in favour of freedom of movement of people.

Labour is due to release its manifesto in the coming week. Senior Conservatives are giving no guarantees that they will release their programme for government within that timeframe.

Neither manifesto will be published in time for the first TV leaders' debate on Tuesday. Whatever the leaders say then, they won't be committed to it if it is not in their manifesto when it finally appears.

Margaret Thatcher's 1979 manifesto was published three weeks before polling day. In 1997, Tony Blair brought out New Labour, New Life for Britain a full month ahead, backed up by the famous five-point pledge card.

These days campaigners are reluctant to be tied down so soon. It is easier to get away with loose boasts and claims before specific policy is spelt out in black and white, especially when the electorate is so passionately divided.

In this December's election a record number of people are set to cast their vote for the next government truly in the dark - both literally and metaphorically.

Rival politicians hold each other to account for what they say in their manifestos.

Leave supporters point out correctly that, putting the Conservatives and Labour together, over 80% of votes cast at the last election were for parties committed to honouring the result of the 2016 referendum.

Labour has shuffled away from that 2017 commitment and now supports another referendum before the last one has been delivered.

Brexiteers even claim that the Tories have a mandate for no deal because the slogan "no deal is better than a bad deal" was included in their 2017 document, even though it is explicit that no deal was not Theresa May's aim.

Since the Conservatives did not win a majority of MPs, there is also a question as to how tied the subsequent government should be to its last manifesto. After all, May dumped her manifesto's proposals on social care, dubbed the dementia tax, in record time before polling day.

Once a manifesto is published, its opponents can "cost" it and give taxpayers worrying assessments of how much its pledges will cost them.

In this election, the Conservatives have already costed Labour plans at over a trillion pounds.

Their figures will have more credibility once Labour has published what it is really committed to, as opposed to what has been merely crowd-pleasing hot air.

If there is a hung parliament, the parties will have to horse-trade on policies until a Queen's Speech can get through parliament - and this can have serious consequences.

The popularity of the Liberal Democrats plunged after Nick Clegg became deputy prime minister in 2010 and his party broke its front-page manifesto pledge to abolish university tuition fees.

In 2019, neither Johnson nor Corbyn wants to be caught out by their manifestos like Clegg and May and that's why they will try to keep their books of pledges late and ambiguous.

Farage is a step ahead of them. His new party can be summed up in one word, its name, Brexit. He probably won't produce a full manifesto at all, preferring a brief "contract with the electorate" and lots of pay-to-attend rallies.

There'll be less time than ever to really analyse and test what each party is really proposing to do as laid out in their manifestos, if they deign to produce one.

We at Sky News will do our very best to keep you informed because in this December's election a record number of people are set to cast their vote for the next government truly in the dark - both literally and metaphorically.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Ian King - Vaping further proof that the US and Europe are worlds apart

The Brexit Election: For the fastest results service and in-depth analysis watch Sky News live from 9pm on Thursday 12 December, with a KayBurley@Breakfast election special on Friday 13 December