Elections, Voting...

Thursday, another round of elections. What to do? Who to vote for? To say I'm not much of a political animal would be an understatement. I avoid politics more than any other topic I can think of, would much rather chat about ballet shoes, birds native to Peru and the latest soap tv drama in Sri Lanka.

However, it's an important right. A huge number of people strived for my right to vote for people to represent me, locally, regionally, nationally and so on and so forth. At home we've duly collected a couple of articles about our voting options, have kept the myriad of flyers posted through our letterbox. Even keeping the one that told us to stick it in the window so that others didn't have to post any more through our letterbox, democracy at work presumably? Gosh, that was the UKIP one, who'd have thunk it???

So, I start reading through the A5 pieces of brightly coloured paper. And they all say the same. Brilliant! Whoever I vote for is going to reduce crime, improve the education of my children, make the Health Service more efficient and cut my council tax bill. How wonderful is that? Now I just have to gauge which will do to the greatest extent I guess. Can't be too difficult can it?

The recycling of ideas, of marketing lines, of change for the sake of change and then a return to the older ways brought up to date a little and well, it gets me down. When I was quite a bit younger it annoyed me that every four years the conservatives and labour would trade places and reverse half of what the other had been doing. I decided that continuity would be good, it didn't matter which one it was as long as they had the chance to get stuck in. And then Margaret was elected. So much for that idea!

A good few friends comment politically and I'm pleased that they do, they give me an opportunity to understand some of the issues. They highlight a lot of the inconsistencies, provide me with some of the facts. The majority of this, however good the information is, is negative. And I could well be missing it through lethargy but I don't recall being advised who I should be voting for... who the good guys and gals are. And we even vote with a 'X', why not a nice tick, positivity is good.

Okay, so less of the facetiousness. I don't trust many people. I know everyone deserves a chance, and I like to think that I can certainly offer everyone that, even after my first impressions have been filed for later consideration. This is so unfair of me. I know there are some genuine politicians out there who will do whatever it may take to make a difference. I love those people, admire their incredible persistence and dedication, feel guilty that I am not one of them. It's just most politicians I have met - not a vast number it's true - or even those I think I might have some understanding of through the media I equally irresponsibly loathe, not a single one would I wish to have represent my views. I should go with the one who will get as close as they can to my view obviously, and yet I just don't trust them. I should try to get to know them better, then I could confidently vote. Oh what am I going to do come Thursday? I have two decisions to make, up to four votes to cast. You know what I'm going to do? Absolutely nothing. That's it!