Unless you have been hiding under a rock, or up the Amazon completely out of touch from newspapers, television, radio and gossip, you will know that the most infuriating and important election in at least the last twenty years is upon us.
I have always voted. It would never ever occur to me not to vote. It is my right and my duty. Braver women than I chained themselves to railings and chucked themselves under racehorses to win the vote. It's the least I can do, frankly.
I was up and ready this morning before the 0700 alarm. No mean feat as I crawled away to bed at 0315 this morning, carried away by writing again.
The least I can do. That particular statement carries even more irony when you consider that my vote doesn't really count. I live in what is laughingly termed, a safe seat. Not so much from my cold, dead hands as from my safe, warm seat. In my case, the incumbent has been in residence since the dawn of time... or so it seems. Actually he was first returned in this seat in May 1997, it just seems like forever.
I rolled up this morning fully intending to cast my vote for the Lib Dems; perhaps the least dire option amongst some real stinkers. I picked up my two papers. White for National Government (surely a particularly grubby shade of grey would have been more appropriate), and Green for Local Government. I walked over to the booth. Unfolded the papers and stared at them.
A list of names, the candidates' addresses, box to make a cross in. Simple.
Yeah, right.
First of all, at the top of the paper, the incumbent. Fair enough, I wasn't going to vote for him. Second on the List, the Labour Candidate.
Apparently, Surrey matters so little to the Labour Party that they can't even be bothered to field a candidate who actually lives here. The Labour Candidate lives in West London.
Then my eye fell on the listing for the Lib Dem Candidate.
Apparently, Surrey matters even less to the Lib Dems, whose candidate did not even put down an address, but stated in brackets that she had addressed in Hampstead and Kilburn.
Hampstead and Kilburn, those well known boroughs of Surrey!!!
I refuse to vote for candidates who don't even live here. How can they know anything about Surrey if they don't actually live in Surrey?
I cast my vote. After all, it makes no difference according to Voter Power Index.
In Mole Valley, one person does not really have one vote, they have the equivalent of 0.073 votes.
The average UK voter has 3.45x more voting power than voters in Mole Valley. 0.253 to be precise! [Source: Voter Power Index].
I didn't vote for whom I wanted to. I didn't vote tactically... apparently I can't even do that. And I refuse to spoil my ballot paper.
NONE OF THE ABOVE was the option I wanted. It is the option we should have for when all else fails.
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Those who know me well, know that my music in the truck is usually played at a fairly ear-splitting level.
Right now, I have an irritating problem with my truck and a loose wire somewhere in the system.
As I drove away from voting this morning, my truck's front right tyre hit a particularly large pothole. For a few seconds, my music was at psychological warfare volumes. It was that point that I remembered that the party mostly in power and responsible for things like the potholes (which in my town are enormous and have done untold damage to many cars)... is the Liberal Democrats.
Maybe my wasted vote wasn't such a waste afterall.
