Offmessage

BBC apologies for coverage of the Charles/Camilla engagement (or specifically for rearranging the schedule to cover it). Really? Surely it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t manage to knock the launch of the Labour (not really an) election campaign off the top news spot, anyway…

On which related point… Can anyone reading this really bear a 3 month election campaign? 3 months of question dodging, opposition bashing and overwhelming media saturation? There’s a risk that I may be forced to resort to weapons if it goes on that long. Is there any way I can opt out?

In previous years I’ve tended to get really excited by elections, but this year I can sense the bile rising already. The choice of either a Labour third term or a Conservative first does not fill me with anything other than horror. What worries me the most is that I can see Tony Blair claiming a “mandate from the people” from an election with a hideously low turnout and no effective opposition. Suddenly he’ll be telling us all that we really wanted ID cards, war in Iran, cessation to the US, etc etc because “if the people didn’t want it they’d have voted for someone else, wouldn’t they?”

It may be time to turn off my TV and radio and read something else on the tube.