The UK Election!!!!

We're having an election?!I haven't been interested in party politics for years. I know it's a cliche, but they really are all the same difference to me. I think all that you're really voting for is where the cuts are made and where the taxes are increased. Swings and roundabouts.It doesn't make sense to me that new governments tend to be relatively popular and then after 2 or 3 terms they become relatively unpopular. Always. Never the other way around. They come and go for reasons of fashion.

I admit that wasn't my finest moment!I suppose what I meant was that it's a question of taking a little bit more from here rather than there, just to make it look like your doing something different. My guess would be that if any one of the main parties stayed in power for more than 2 or 3 terms, they'd end up having to switch their policy to whatever the others would do if they got into power. Or at least they'd like to do so, if their egos didn't prevent them. I guess that may be why it's a good thing to change every 2 or 3 terms.I see political economic policy being run like trying to balance a ball on a flat board you're holding in your hand. The ball starts to run to one side, so you tilt the board slightly the other way. The ball then rolls towards the other side, so you tilt it back again. Sometimes it gets quite close to the edge, but provided you don't do anything crazy nothing seems to go really wrong.WARNING: I know absolutely nothing about economics. If you're running an country, please do not listen to me.

Look forward to that. Apart from the audacious idea of using the word "world" to describe an event that actually involves most of the world, we'll teach 'em that football involves mainly using the foot (again, the clue is in the title).

In last Thursday's debate between the 3 main party leaders, they all said they'd welcome the Pope's visit to UK in September.All 3 of them lost any chance of receiving my vote there and then.

I realise it's unlikely that I will agree with all the policies of any one party, so I was prepared to compromise. I'm also not so naive as to expect all candidates to be endowed with a huge amount of personal respectability. But when none of the prospective leaders has the balls to voice even the slightest concern about such a disreputable figure, and is so blatantly keen to secure power at the cost of any integrity, never mind the welfare of the citizens, I'm not prepared to vote for any of them.

Hi Straggler Maybe I will decide to back-down from my stance, but in my naivity I do hope for a government or revised political system that allows our politicians to be totally straight and only interested in standing for what they believe in rather than trying to gain as many votes as possible purely to get into power. For as long as we pander to their existing attitude, they will continue in the same vein.I was interested in reading various blogs and debates elsewhere where people expressed shock and outrage that the Foreign Office was so unprofessional in allowing that memo mocking the Pope. Personally, it gives me great comfort and security to know that our senior civil servants (a) have a sense of humour and (b) recognise the Pope for what he is - a twat in a hat. I'd be far more worried if they thought the sun shone out of his arse. I just wish that politicians and civil servants could say that out loud - it would give them much greater credibility in my view. It would also hasten the decline of the charlatans.