I AM being inundated with pre-election email: will I sign up to the Cancer Manifesto?

Will I endorse the Muslim Manifesto? Will I come to the launch of The Animal protection Manifesto? It gets worse. If you are not satisfied with the generic Cancer Manifesto, there is a Breast Cancer Manifesto, and a Prostate Cancer ‘MANifesto’.

If you are not satisfied with the generic NHS Manifesto, well there is a Manifesto for Primary Care too; If you are just not satisfied with an animal manifesto, there is one specifically for dogs – A Dog’s Life Manifesto.

I suppose that at least with a manifesto, someone has taken the trouble to collect together a number of legislative proposals under a subject heading.

With many of my correspondents however, they insist that their voting intention comes down to one single question.

For example, last week a constituent insisted that his vote depended on my consent to join the campaign to abolish the ten per cent levy payable to the site owner when a mobile home changes hands. Others tell me that their vote depends upon reopening the terms of the Equitable Life compensation settlement.

I understand the importance of these issues to people, but that they should determine their whole approach to the election decision is beyond my comprehension.

I can only presume that they were exaggerating for my benefit.

Have I been labouring under some sort of illusion? I thought that the purpose of an election was to settle big questions about the government and direction of a nation. This balkanisation of the electorate is reinforced by commentators who continuously define us as a set of competing interests.

They see the elderly as having distinctly different interests from younger generations, and to which they believe politicians pander at the expense of the young, on account of the greater propensity of the elderly actually turn out and vote.

Do they have no understanding of family dynamics? Do they imagine that that elderly people ignore the needs and priorities of their children and grandchildren? Do they think that younger generations take no notice of their seniors?

I confess to never having regarded elections or the electorate in this way.

For me, it is not a question of offering sweeties or bribes to marshal people to deliver a majority in Parliament. I still see elections as a choice between distinctly different visions of the future, and our destiny as a nation. We should consider bigger questions than our personal interests.

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