Almost time to decide

AT this point in an election campaign, it is tempting to quickly turn the radio dial when yet another party political broadcast is announced.

Opinion poll after opinion poll morph into something like an animated alphabet soup. Confusion reigns, disinterest grows, disconnect deepens.

Inspiring, credible, or even imaginative rhetoric is in short supply.

Milk-and-honey promises, whether wild, seductive, impossible, or simply dishonest drench us like steam in a sauna. Debates from broadcast studios quickly collapse into the usual, uninformative Donnybrook.

Newspapers are driven by the unanswerable ‘what if?’ question. Politicians and their supporters, as the finishing line comes into view, gird themselves for one last push to ask for as many votes as is possible.

This day week, all the votes will have been cast and the counting will be beginning. Even if you’d prefer to eat your own foot off rather than wade through the manifestoes, this is the time to decide how you will vote.

If you don’t compare the options, by using your head and not your heart, then don’t complain when the other crowd are elected.