Election: My new favourite programme.

I have a confession to make. It's not a nice confession, so I'm trying to say it quietly, but "quiet" isn't a font I use often, mostly because it doesn't exist (though there's probably an app for that, much like there's not an app for "shutting the smugging hell up").



OK. Here we go.



I don't understand. I dont understand the election.



Now, please don't judge me too harshly. This is actually the first time I've not understood something like this and I'm not totally sure how it's happened. To be honest, I'm beginning to panic a little. Now stop me if I'm wrong, but firstly, Simon Cowell has yet to give his opinion on the whole thing. In terms of reality TV, that seems a bit weird. Secondly, I'm never totally sure which of the contestants is actually winning, as its very hard to make out what they're doing under all the sequins and glitter. Thirdly (and this is quite a big one), are you seriously telling me that the big prize is being in charge of the actual proper, real-life country? Because they've seriously yanked up the incentive since the "singing Somewhere over the rainbow to the queen" days. And we get to, like, vote for it? As a nation? Whose idea was that? Surely this is far too big a decision to be left to us? Somewhere, somehow, something seems to have gone terribly wrong. And I don't understand how it's happened.



I mean, I did try. I watched episodes one, two and three of "Election", with my ears so strained it felt like they were trying to have simultaneous poos. As far as I can tell, everyone was crooning away to the same song, an angry rock number entitled "Change". Though apparently Cameron sang it first, then Clegg did a disco cover-version, and Brown only released his yesterday after singing it live in front of Citizens UK. I really did like all of them, though Cameron seems a bit pissed off that everyone's stolen his hook. I'm just worried that somehow, despite clicking my fingers to the beat, I'm sort of missing the point.



The problem was that I'm finding it rather difficult to get to the bottom of everything. Now with The X-factor, the contestants each sing a song, the judges comment and we decide based on how nicely they did it. And also depending on whether or not they came from Wales. With this one, I'm finding it hard to see the criteria. It's certainly not "answering the question put to them in a way that is accessible to the great British public". It seems to me to be quite a basic dance routine - one of the three says something universally positive, like "babies are nice", one of the other ones just shakes his head in anger and disbelief and the other other one says "can we please just stop this bickering please". Then they trade places and do the same thing. Sometimes you have to keep an eye on the ties just to make sure you're looking at the right one. Without Simon there to tell them all to stop fucking about, I'm at a bit of a loss. Still, we do at least have polls, which are quite colourful in a "imagine if some lines were stumbling about drunk" kind of way.



But its unfair for me to make a judgement entirely based on three episodes. And anyway, its all online now, right? I thought to myself, why not have a look at the manifestos of the three, (the "about me" section on the "Election" facebook page). And I really tried, I did. But there too lay utter confusion, a spiky hedge maze of "macro-economics", "short -term freezes" and "strategic defense and security reviews", none of which I could really get a grasp of, littered among name-calling and snide remarks about past governing. I'm not saying its not entirely my own fault. I didn't in fact do a degree in economics. But considering the big hit "Change" seems to be the title track in the album "This economic crisis", forgive me for wanting information that I can understand quickly and clearly.



I can probably list on two hands the solid, no fucking about (seriously though, no fucking about)things I know about the party policies. Am I ashamed? Yes. Is this my fault? Possibly. But surely, in an age where we are overloaded with information, where apparently we can learn anything with a quick night-whistle to the owl of Wikipedia, surely it's strange that the most important knowledge about the society we live in has slimmed down to a campaign about three men, rather than three parties? What do I know? I know Cameron is the face of evil, that he climbs into children's bed at night and tells them their parents are made out of toast. Brown? A bumbling cod-fish, whose jaw muscles are slacker than his conversation and as for Nick Clegg, there are rumours that actually, he's one of the members of Sum41, doing this for a laff.

But there has to be a winner, doesn't there? There has to be, because every "election aftermath" has gone on and on about "who won this week". And as far as I can tell, that pissed blue little lines is sailing high above where the other two dare to treat. But then, if you ask my Lib Dem literature I was reading today "there are many, many areas where the Conservatives cannot win", and if you ask Labour, the Conservatives only exist if you say their name three times in the mirror, so who knows what's going to happen in the live final. Policy, you have no place here. This is about popularity, its about flashy persuation and its about banging your fist with gravitas. I've lost counts of the facebook groups that want to "get this dead salmon more fans than David Cameron", or "Get Clegg into power cos we did it with Xmas number one". What a great reason to vote, eh? Why not introduce a "vote 4 PM via text", where if you vote enough times, you get entered into a prizedraw to win a 30 second video of Sarah Brown and Sam Cameron wrestling, stripped to the waist? That and a one-way ticket to a country that doesn't pride its election as being a battle for who can shout the loudest. We're so bloody used to being handed the power, that I'm a bit worried we've lost any idea of how important we actually are. Still. It's too late now, eh? To all those who know what you're doing this Thursday, good luck to you. You stuck it out longer than I could. For everyone else, well, it's two days away yet, Cameron might yet stick a wine bottle up his bum and change everything.