OK. Sit down. This may come as a shock to you. It will definitely come as shock to those of you who know me. I apologise. What? you didn’t hear it at the back? OK I’ll say it again. I’m sorry. Right? I apologise unreservedly, without restraint, completely and totally. It is all my fault. Honest injun, cross my heart and hope to die, its a fair cop guv. You can all blame me (no, not for everything - just for this)

The thing is that I knew the information was inaccurate. I knew it was. But I had to make a decision. Quickly. So I did. I did what I thought was right. I went out tonight and I…and I…and I voted.

No, I’m not going to tell you who I voted for - except obviously I didn’t vote for Blair - and no when I say Blair - I don’t mean Labour - we don’t have a Labour party in Britain anymore. My reticence on the subject of my vote is nothing to do with the ideal of a secret ballot - it’s just that I haven’t a clue who I actually did vote for.

I was confused you see. I’ve read the blurb and watched the TV and my head (rather aptly when you consider the way politics is now carried out in this country) was spinning. I read manifestos and watched debates and tried to view everything objectively. It wasn’t easy. When your first thought on seeing an MP is “you lying bastard” then objectivity tends to be rarer than…well…an honest politician.

I knew that the Lib Dems would like to abolish council tax and I knew that the Conservatives would like to introduce immigration quotas and I know that Blair is promising everyone jam tomorrow and croissants (hand delivered from his fav Islington bakery) the day after. But I don’t believe the Lib Dems and I don’t believe the Tory’s and as I have both a wheat allergy and hypoglycaemia Blair’s promises are no good to me.

So there I was, caught between the Tory’s and the Lib Dems, which let me tell you is a very uncomfortable place to be. To make matters worse, in Scotland you have all these other parties too - all of which have silly and easily confused names. I must admit that I didn’t pay much attention to them - after all I’m not Scottish (thank God - more of that anon). Neither did I pay much attention to the more marginal parties - the ones that have no chance of getting in - as I figured that would be a wasted vote.

All last week I swung. Not quite this way and that, but from right to middle and back again. Tory - Lib Lib - Tory. Right up until today, my political inclinations were swaying like Yeltsin at a rally. I went to work. I came home. I watched the news. I went to vote.

The polling station (or church hall) was absolutely deserted. There were 3 rather public looking booths and a large box in on a rackety table in the middle of the hall. An old lady took my voting card and crossed my name off the list while the old man next to her handed me my voting slip. I glanced quickly down at my voting slip, noticed that Blairs party was at the top of the list and walked to the nearest booth without looking at the slip again. There was a nasty moment when I realised that there were no pens but a quick scrabble around my handbag unearthed a rather bitten old biro.

There are some moments in your life when you achieve perfect clarity of purpose. This was one of them. All of a sudden my indecision vanished. I was going to be truly democratic. I was going to be intuitive. I was going to be organic and spontaneous about my vote. I wasn’t going to look at the list.

I closed my eyes and without peeping laid my hand across the voting slip so that my fingers covered the names of the party’s. Then I opened my eyes. I knew that my little finger covered Blair at the top of the list but I honestly didn’t have a clue where the rest of them were on the page. I closed my eyes again. Felt along my fingers to the tips, took a deep breath, thought very hard and made a random X. Then I folded up the slip. Opened my eyes. Walked to the ballot box and dropped it in.

So you see. Tomorrow you will wake up and discover that a government has got in. It’s all my fault. I’m really sorry.

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