I loved the first election debate last night. I also didn’t realise it was the first ever. Thinking there was one every year, I congratulated myself on becoming politically savvy at age 22. Alastair Stewart, who upon knowing no other political news-type, I then declared must be Paxman with a funny haircut and rounder face.

With a sentiment tracker, feedback from Facebook and Twitter wheeling away, and occasional votes popping up to ITV online viewers it was ace because people on the Internet are far better are being witty bastards than me.

“This is the worst Kraftwerk gig ever.” -@vivmondo

“I keep on expecting Clegg to say, “…and we can offer you an extended warranty on that.” -@richard_baker

“David Cameron looks like a face drawn on a thumb” said @thingsbydan, drawing the picture.

We decided that GB looked like a trustworthy Dali painting and Nick Clegg amused me with his purposefully amusing comment: “Get rid of the black hole of waste by saving money on paperclips and pot plants in Whitehall.” I spluttered and giggled but it sounds shit on paper.

A nice site has made it simple to compare political policies called Vote For Policies – and everyone liked the Green Party apparently, even me (although I looked up only four policy topics, namely: schooling, health, crime, and democracy). Every party’s policies of privatisation, deportation, and re-hauling systems seemed to be terrifying. Perhaps no one wants too much change, and that’s why we all like The Green Party.*

My notion of politics comes from somewhere between a horiztonal drawing which read along the lines of ‘liberal vs privatisation’ along it, and Adrian Mole books in which no one likes Thatcher.

“Conservatives want to privatise the schools and hospitals,” said my Mother. “They did it with the milk.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“No,” she said sagely.
“Who do you vote for Mummy?” I asked.
“It’s a secret. I’m not telling you.” I wondered for a couple of years.

I was very pleased when Tony Blair came into power when I was in Year 6. Lots of people said “Tony Bleurrrghr” and made vomiting noises, but the grey haired man on television was dull and Tony Blair did good speeches. (It’s to do with the mono-tonal voices that children of a certain age ignore no doubt).

I took some tests on The Political Compass answering the questions in as bias a way possible. ‘I’m near Ghandi and Old Labour,’ I said, pleased. I spied New Labour. “What is this?” I outraged. “They’re near the conservatives – and we don’t like them because they take our milk,” I thought, and set about using Wikipedia as my sole source of information about Old and New Labour. My conclusions, at age 13, were that I would vote for Labour, and so thus the New kind if I must. I would vote, but I would be voting on the principles of the 80s. This would fix things, even if I wasn’t a coal-miner.

I was talking about politics the other day, and my (reasoned) disdain for small parties, people’s lack of enthusiasm to vote for them, and generally pontificating on a subject I know little about. I’d like to compare policies, in the same way I want to find a chart listing pros and cons of iPhone vs Android (another pressing problem in today’s society) that makes it easy to work these sort of things out:

‘NHS privatisation’ tick, cross, tick.
‘White supremacy’ – tick, cross, cross.
This would make things easier.

Of course, it’d be all the more effective if I’d ever voted. Last year I incorrectly put envelope B in envelope A and voided my vote.

*Alternatively, this link is passing around only certain demographics via Twitter, all of whom happen to cycle bikes and like the environment and such. Also note, the current voting stands at 119 completed surveys, which isn’t hugely proportionate.