Voting

Not having a television has meant I have been fairly immune to all the endless rabbiting that goes on just before we have an election.

I have heard snippets of it on Radio 4, and of course taxi drivers have always got plenty of opinions about everything, so it has been much discussed on the taxi rank, but other than that it has completely bypassed me, as nobody has been to our house canvassing: and Mark, who has been working up at the farm where he can’t get radio reception, seems to have missed it completely and was astounded the other day when I mentioned the royal baby, because he hadn’t even known that one was on the way.

Despite this I can’t help feeling a bit of the collective excitement now that it is actually upon us, it is a marvellous thing that we all turn up en masse and make a solemn cross in the right box on the ballot paper and fold it and post it into a locked box so that nobody knows our secret choice. It is arcane, and ritualistic, and powerful, and I loved it this morning, it made me feel as though I was part of a thoughtful and sensible community, who care what happens to the country that we share, and I felt very proud of all of us.

It adds to the excitement that by various means I am personally acquainted with almost all of our various candidates, one of them even asked me to be godmother to his daughter once, which I refused on account of not feeling myself to be at all an appropriate person to promise to safeguard somebody’s Christian faith: although I was immensely flattered. Also having stood for election myself in the past, although it was local, not national, I am thoroughly acquainted with the awful anxiety and excitement that happens behind the scenes, and I have to tell you that I am overwhelmingly relieved not to be involved.

I stood as a candidate in a local election once, some years ago, and despite having cheerfully agreed to do it, loathed every minute of it. I made the basic mistake of not wanting to share my opinions about anything, firstly because it seemed to be none of anybody else’s bloody business, and secondly because I was under the misapprehension that the job of councillor was to represent the opinions and problems of the local population: so what I ought to be doing was finding out what everybody wanted me to say, and then going to council meetings and saying it on their behalf.

I turned out to be wrong, and wasn’t elected anyway, which in the event was the most profound relief imaginable, because after having attended some council meetings and met up with various people involved, the prospect of having to spend sunny mornings trapped in a council chamber listening to people being self-important and righteous, and eventually becoming self-important and righteous myself, seemed to be unspeakably dreary and miserable.

Also so many of the problems that turned up were simply insoluble, but terribly upsetting to people who suffered with them. This was dreadful, because when you are in a position of power people think that you can help, and quite often you can’t, because actually no one individual is that powerful anywhere: but if you don’t pretend that you can then they won’t elect you again, which is depressing and horrible.

All the same, it does mean that I have had the unspeakably exciting experience of attending a Count, where you all turn up to a massive hall at the local Leisure Centre or similar, and hang around anxiously with your own team, and glare at the other teams, and watch the officers sorting and counting the votes, so that you can personally make sure that no skulduggery goes on, and huge exultation and dreadful despair and the fate of the whole community is all focussed in one place, on plastic chairs under the strip-lights.

I saw one dear old chap, who had been a worthy and conscientious councillor for twenty years, lose by two votes, and my heart bled: and saw one man who I knew personally to be an unscrupulous rogue win by a mile: and the whole thing was utterly absorbing and thrilling, and I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

Of one thing I am absolutely certain, it is a weary and unrewarding career, much of it spent patiently and helplessly listening to other people’s tragedies, and much more of it spent tediously and painstakingly debating solutions for other people’s problems, and I think that the people who have a go at it are jolly brave. I found the Count excruciatingly nerve-wracking, and I didn’t even want to be elected.

I wouldn’t be in any of their shoes today for any price whatsoever.