Policy-less politics

The upcoming elections are bugging me. Yep, I'm back on politics again. I know I ought to steer well clear of it, since I freely admit that it isn't my area of expertise, but the joy of a democratic society means that even those of us who are as well-informed as the average earthworm are allowed to express an opinion. The problem I have is that I don't really know what my opinion is. I always vote, since my few feminist principles insist on it, but I can't say I ever get particularly enthused about it.

I've been asked before why I don't get excited about politics, since it directly or indirectly affects every area of my life. It's not that I don't care, I just find it all incredibly depressing. Most politicians come across as grasping children fighting over treats. They want the country but they don't really seem to know what to do with it once they've got it. I also dislike the idea that if I want my vote to actually make a difference then I have to vote Labour or Conservative. I won't vote Labour because of the Iraq war, and I won't vote Conservative because my maternal family are from a coal-mining town, and the Tories put them through some of the hardest times of their lives. Plus I'd probably be disowned.

To me it makes sense to vote for the Lib Dems. So many people say they'd vote for them but they wouldn't get in so there's no point. If all those people voted for them then maybe they would get in. Who knows if they'd do any better, but they'd be hard pushed to do worse. Their slogan this year should be "Give us a go. We've never buggered it up before". And Nick Clegg may have his faults but really, look at the alternatives. I can't take Cameron seriously when his campaign posters show him airbrushed into a plastic mannekin head, and every time I look at poor old Gordon Brown I just want to sit him down in a corner with a blanket and a werthers original. The man looks broken.

Oh, and a word of advice to a certain campaigning party. Parking a vehice with a huge banner on it outside my place of work, and using a megaphone to shout racist slurs under a thin verneer of politics doesn't make me want to vote for you. It makes me want to fill water balloons with wallpaper paste and ask the college upstairs if I can borrow their window.