Is That It?

So I just voted.
How anti-climactic.

All that reading and watching, all that time weighing up the options about which party will f*ck up the country the least, it all ends by walking into a room – an old school room to be exact – and putting an X on a piece of paper. Fold it, put it in a box. Done.

I guess it comes in watching it unfold on the news.
ESPECIALLY NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME YOU CAN WATCH IT IN GLORIOUS HD!!!!!!
Yeah, that was the real reason I voted, because it’s in HD.
What could be more exciting that watching an ex town council member counting bits of paper, and no swingoimeter has meant much because the picture quality hasn’t been good enough.

Basically if there was a party who’s policy centered around reducing the amount of ads for HD to less than seven an hour, they’d have my vote.

Also, to confuse people, today I’m wearing my Glassjaw tee, because everyone will wonder if I’m campaigning for the green party…

Where To Put that ‘X’

So here we go.

I’ve watched plenty of TV, read plenty of newspapers, blogs, articles and manifestos.

Tomorrow I will make a decision based on what I have learned.

What have I learned?

Um…

• That to truly know enough about a party’s policies, I should have started reading after the last election.
• Politicians are desperate, smug, bickering children.
  Not that you don’t all already know this.
  But when I see arguments in the house of parliament, my heart sinks at how pathetic they seem.
• Nick Clegg is very likeable, but policy > personality, and though I’m tempted, there’s a few things I don’t like.
• David Cameron surprised me, for all the talk of Clegg’s charisma, the TV debates showed him passionate and confident – take a look how often he looked at his notes.
• I also learned that David Cameron has met someone for every convenient situation, and seems to repeat himself.  If he rolled his sleeves up every time he said the party will, he’d have severed his arms.
• As with every general election I can remember, you cannot aim for the best, but for the least worst.

So what the hell am I going to do today?

Environment is an issue I keep coming back to, leading me to consider voting Green. But will that be a wasted vote? I’d like them to get MPs, to have a voice in parliament, but will it just be another bickering voice in the childish, squabbling, one-upsmanship we always see on BBC2

But if not them, who? Each of the main three have policies I… hmm, believe in? But others that I don’t. I don’t trust any of them.

I think from all that I’ve taken in, there’s only three things I’m sure of about the whole debacle:

1) I won’t vote for labour. After the four thousand years they’ve been in charge, they haven’t done enough. they’ve failed this country. People spit hate at them as if they should have saved us from an economic crisis and all the other crap that puts our country in such a state. They couldn’t have. Neither could any other party, and neither will whoever takes over from them. But they should have done better. And nothing I have heard from them has inspired any confidence. Every debate and quote sounds like polish on nothingness. Spiel and sound-bites to gloss over the status quo. Their complete refusal to admit fault to anything means they cannot appear remotely passionate about doing right by the UK. Anyway.

2) It’s going to be a hung parliament. – I’m certain of it. Lib Dems as king-makers. Arguments and lack of action to follow.

3) An argument between Jeremy Paxman and Andrew Neil would be the most amazing argument in the world. ever.

I will vote for someone, if not to say I stand for a party, but that I stand against the BNP. I feel that strongly about it.
I didn’t vote in the European elections. Now our country is represented by racist scum.

So I will have to sleep on it and decide where I put my X. Enjoy standing up and being counted.