Counting the days

I am already counting the days until this damnable general election is history, over with, gone! The whole performance, for that is precisely what it seems to be, is driving me demented!

There was a time I would have classed myself as a political animal, in the heady days of Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Margaret Thatcher and the like, when I was young and naive enough to think I could actually make a difference, that if I voted, understood and persevered things might change......oh the idiocy of youth!

Every form of media is currently obsessed with the upcoming election, the TV constantly rings to the sound of Tony Blairs babble, the newspapers show pointless pictures of one or other politician 'playing the election game' and radio is bogged down by various political commentators saying his or her piece.

Good God! I could perhaps tolerate it all if just one of them uttered anything other than opposition mud-slinging, has anyone actually heard anything constructive from the mouths of these individuals yet, some of whom will ultimately hold our collective purse strings and decide how we live our lives....... thus far I sure as hell haven't.

So we tolerate these dire goings on, we trudge faithfully to the local school or community centre on the appointed day to place our cross in the box, like a flock of sheep...... and what for?

Five years more, a lifetime more of things remaining much the same, there is barely any distinction between those we can cast our vote for nowadays, they have all blended into one great grey mass, nothing will change worth a jot.

We will still pay our income tax at high rates to support those who can't be bothered to work. We will carry on supporting those who chose to give birth on at least three occasions, prior to the age of 16. We will still house them, give them beer money by the bucket load and provide them with grotesquely large plasma televisions, so they may be entertained while they plan their next Burberry purchase!

We will continue to allow all and sundry to enter the UK, regardless of their entitlement to do so, whilst making political points by removing one or two families, normally those who would appear to be model citizens, back to the country they fled in fear of their lives. I ask you, how many other countries would firstly allow 'everyone and his aunt' across their borders and then support them, provide them with medical care, a home and most other necessities of life as reward for illegally entering! But no....we must not say that for fear of being thought racist. Piffle, I am one of the least racist people you might imagine but it still gauls me that those who enter the UK legally get hauled over the coals and pulled from pillar to post and yet those that hang under trucks to get here are treated like kings.

Fuel will remain some of the most expensive in the Western world, consumer goods likewise, house prices will continue to soar, along with community tax, our police officers will carry on struggling against ever increasingly violent crime and farmers will continue to be paid vast sums, to produce precisely nothing at all!

I love my country, I honestly do, in many respects I feel lucky to live here but just sometimes, when I listen to the current political carryings of our merry band aiming for the top spot, I have to allow myself a little 'knee jerk' anger and frustration. In reality I know all these issues are more complicated than I paint them, nothing is straight forward and there are myriad reasons behind every situation..... but, just now and again I can't help but feel antagonism.

I will cast my vote, not too do so, particularly as a woman, is bordering on the criminal in my mind but there are times when I wonder why.