NOT TODAY THANK YOU...

Today is election day here in our Kentish enclave.  We are being invited to vote for candidates for the County Council and also, of all things, the County`s Police and Crime Commissioner.  To help this process along, the village hall has been commandeered for the day and the polling station there opened at 7.00am this morning and will go on until 10.00pm this evening - so plenty of time although I feel for the staff at the polling station who will have a long 15 hours of it.

Once upon a time in a former life I had some things to do with elections and all the paraphernalia that went with them - the stubby pencils, the red tape and sealing wax, the strict formality of it all.  Indeed, on one occasion I was appointed Presiding Officer at a remote hamlet in deepest Surrey which had a population of about 50.  I put in the 15 hour shift despite the fact that the vast majority of the residents had cast their votes by about mid afternoon.

Now I accept that General Elections and the odd referendum are events which should be taken seriously and the democratic right to vote should be observed but somehow I can`t quite take the County Council or the Police and Crime Commissioner thing as seriously as perhaps I should.  Maybe as my decline accelerates, my cynicism increases.  But the fact is that almost every aspect of our lives is governed by politics and that`s a pity.

The County Council comes across as a remote organisation, perhaps too big to be genuinely close to those for whom it is there to serve and who, of course, pay its way.  I have a good deal of admiration for the staff of the County Council who, being Council Tax payers themselves, are doubtless aware of the need for efficiency and commitment to the cause.  But the problem seems to be the elected members - too many of them, costing a fortune in expenses and allowances and concerned with the maintenance of their status...and we only ever hear from them when elections come around every few years.  Arguably more interested in the politics than the job at hand.

As for the Police and Crime bod, that is also a political position;  the candidates for us to choose from today are from each of the three main political parties.  Now one would think that an experienced and thoroughly professional Chief Constable would be more than capable of securing his annual budget and submitting an annual report on priorities and performance to a small independent panel, rather than be beholden to a political appointee.  Well, that`s what used to happen in olden times but those arrangements were not political enough for the politicians.

I speak with the experience of being a victim of politicisation.  In yet another former life I was approached to become a governor of a couple of local schools - a primary and a secondary - the head teachers having nominated me on the assumption that my experience at the time might prove useful.  I accepted, enjoyed the role and for a while things went very well.  Until one evening I had a phone call from a Labour Party `whip` in County Hall to tell me that my services were no longer required.  Thank you and goodnight.  Problem was that I was (and still am) politically ambivalent.

So, perhaps for the first time ever, I will decline the chance to go and vote for two `offices` neither of which inspire any degree of confidence, identity or direct relevance, save for the fact that together they are costing me a four figure sum each year and there`s nothing I can do about that or the clinging grasp that politics has over our lives.

Not today thank you.