Polling day

A few years ago I stood for election as a district councillor. This took me into a world about which I knew very little. I had no understanding of the hours that councillors put in and that made the fact that they're unpaid all the more incredible. Of course, as a consequence of this, a lot of them are retired, which puts an interesting spin on the whole set up.

I wasn't elected but I was subsequently asked to stand as a county councillor. Having seen how busy district councillors are, I said no thanks but I was coerced into doing it on the basis that I stood no chance of being elected. In the end I lost by 13 votes: a very narrow escape!

Part of the 'job' of being a candidate is attending the polling stations and counting the people as they go in and out. (This is not a proper part of the process, just something that parties do.) I often used to do the early shift, so when I popped in to vote this morning I stopped to chat with the people doing that job.

The ballot paper itself was disappointing: Ukip, of course, plus NO2EU plus a couple of other similar candidates. I wonder how these candidates - elected not through hard work on the doorstep but through a single-issue (for which they aren't providing a solution) - will get on with the twenty or thirty hours of unpaid work they're expected to do each week?