NO CONTEST..

There`s to be an election here in Dibley for a seat on the Parish Council.  The official polling cards have arrived telling us that the election will be on Thursday 17th January and that the polling station in the village hall will be open from 7.00am to 10pm - so no less than 15 hours for us to toddle along and cast our votes.

Trouble is, there are alleged to be somewhere in the order of 15 or 16 candidates, such is the furore within the parish over, well, parochial issues.   These include the fraught question of where, if anywhere, to locate some kind of outdoor gym facility supposedly for the elderly population; keeping the footpaths clear, a new changing room for the playing fields, what to do about the resident newts preventing access to an open space as they are a protected species (I`ve suggested a controlled explosion,)  and such like.  Cameron thinks he has problems?  He should try running Dibley.

I imagine the next few weeks will see the candidates canvassing away, festooning us with leaflets, hiring megaphones and being nice to us.   But the qualities I look for in a candidate for the Parish Council include a penchant for football, an eagerness to apply common sense rather than any political party line and a determination to cut through the bureaucracy that seems to result solely in the Parish Council talking about things rather than doing them.

I think I know just the man....and it ain`t me.