election hustings

Put a cross not a tick

We attended a hustings last night. The timekeeper was late so we had to wait ten minutes. When she arrived we could start? No. We had a class in democracy. This was taught by a man who ran a private neighbourhood consultancy company!

Hello- what is this? Who bets we are paying for this under some 'community involvement' scheme? Is this company responsible for the tsunami of brochures, magazines and leaflets (mostly of a red nature) coming through our letterboxes this last month after five years of being totally ignored? Anyway, this company director, who had difficulty in the formation of sentences, told us - with the use of a screen - that:

• there was an election on May 6th-
• we lived in a constituency-
• there were four wards in our constituency-

• what an MP did - why are we so polite?
• Why we should vote -
• To tell him what the photo on screen was - Palace of Westminster, House of Commons etc

By this time the brain was bleeding quite badly. The initial questions were on:

• Gaza and the dastardly Israelis
• Bins and recycling....

The brain problem had got really bad so we slipped out.