'X' marks the spot

Today sees polling stations open across the UK, as the population is encouraged to vote in the election for the European Parliament.

There's a good deal of ranting by politicians as to whether EU membership is a good thing or not. One camp tends to play on fears of 'foreigners' and the centralisation of powers in another country, whilst the other camp promotes the economic benefits for businesses and workers, as well as funding for major infrastructure projects.

As if anything could be so cut and dried.

The whole malarkey is further complicated by the fact that, inevitably, the results will be seen to be a marker for next year's general election in the UK. And as far as Scotland is concerned, the more pressing matter of the independence referendum in September this year.

For Our Lass and I, reappraisal has become the norm of late. A new home, new jobs, living in a different country - these are all big changes, which have rippled out into other facets of our lives. So it's no surprise that I am wondering afresh where to place my vote.

Now, we don't reside in a village, let alone a town, so I wasn't expecting anyone knocking on the door to canvass my vote. Various political parties did send us mail, which focussed upon the points which they thought would bring them the most success. But it wasn't possible to enter into any sort of dialogue over what I might want.

I did email the political party I normally vote for, raising a few questions about Europe and challenging them to convince me to maintain my loyalty. I received a short, automated message along the lines that not all emails could receive a reply.  

Fortunately, help arrived in the form of a link embedded in a fellow blogger's post. This led me to a website that allowed users to check which party is closest to their beliefs. I had to answer 30 questions and I was then presented with a graph, showing how strongly each party's manifesto sync'd with the Tense world view.

The most interesting part of the exercise was that it wasn't how 'close' at all, but was a matter of 'not too far'. I had answered the questions with wildlife in mind, this being the main driver for me. No single party and I had above 50% agreement, but two parties stood out as being least worst, with 47% agreement (the worst party was a lowly 5%).

Pleasingly, on some level at least, one of these two was the party that I had been contemplating as being the recipient of my 'X'. But it would seem to be the case that politicians, in general, don't see nature, wildlife or habitat as a big issue. Shame on them.