Why We Bother

Two and a half thousand years ago the Greek philosopher Socrates was extremely worried that democracy would give rise to demagoguery. Socrates believed that many citizens lacked the knowledge and wisdom necessary to make informed decisions, which could lead to poor governance and the rise of demagogues. A demagogue being a political leader who relies on prejudices, false promises, and charisma to manipulate voters into choosing them. His beliefs have been validated many times across our ensuing history, no more so than now.
 
Reggie pushed open the outer door and stepped into the entrance foyer, something he'd done hundreds of times as a boy. The walls were a different colour and the group photos hanging on them had updated haircuts, but the polished parquet flooring and the smell of boiled cabbage and arbitrary adolescent hygiene were exactly the same.  

A number of sellotaped paper arrows invited him to follow them down the familiar corridor, past the Secretaries' office and along into the airy, high windowed assembly hall. To his left, two familiar looking plastic topped dinner tables had been pushed together to create a barrier between citizens and officialdom, behind which were seated a man in a spiffing Fairisle sleeveless pullover and two ladies whom he immediately christened Hinge and Bracket, a drag act he remembered seeing on TV in the eighties.

He approached the Formica redoubt and joined a small queue of his fellow stalwarts waiting to be processed, whilst staring absent mindedly at Fairisle man, someone he was sure he knew from the past. His memory bank had gone into overdrive as he gazed around him at the place he hadn't seen for more than forty years. The long velvet curtains had gone and the stacked chairs were different, but the stage and the lectern and the old trophy cabinets along the wall were exactly the same.

Fairisle man was busy with a Biro and six-inch ruler, scoring out names from the list in front of him with meticulous precision. To his right lay a well-worn and shamelessly unzipped pencil case, inadvertently exposing a lifetime of Freudian angst. As Reggie stepped forward, his memory bank suddenly delivered a name from the archives and he grinned as he dropped his polling card onto the table and fired his opening salvo.

'I'll have the Shepherd's Pie, please Norm, but not the sago. You know sago can do strange things to a man.'

Fairisle glared for a second over the top of his horn rims and looked away again without a glimmer of recognition. He picked up the polling card and scoured it with as much officialdom as he could muster. 

'Good morning Mr Forster, do you have photo ID please?'

'It's me Norm....Reggie! Reggie Forster! Surely you remember me?'

Hinge and Bracket had been fully engaged in taking it in turns to watch each other perform the demanding task of tearing a perforated ballot paper from a booklet, but on hearing the words shepherd's pie and sago for the first time ever in a polling station, and then their much revered Presiding Officer referred to as 'Norm', paused mid tear to recuperate.

'I'm sorry Mr Forster, I'm afraid I don't know you, and even if I did, I would still require you to provide me with photo ID, as it's now required by law.' 

'Oh! come on Norm, surely you can't have forgotten me, especially here in this very room. Think school dinners. Think  sago pudding. Think sexy Lizzy Lightcliffe. Think soggy crotch.'

The Presiding Officer slid his horn rims back along his glowing nose and quickly laid his Biro to rest on the table, carefully adjusting it into exact parallel with his ruler. The atmosphere was now heavy with expectation and Fairisle discomfort radiated to all corners of the room. In a desperate attempt to cover his evident discomposure, Norm snatched up his pencil case and zipped himself back together. 

'A passport or a driving licence perhaps?' he enquired, in an attempt to get back behind the barricade of officialdom. 'Or even a bus pass will suffice.' he quipped, trying to regain the initiative.

Realising Norm wasn't playing, Reggie produced his driving licence and handed it to the recovering Presiding Officer with a broad grin on his face. Hinge and Bracket sagged a little with disappointment at what they had hoped would be enough startling revelation about their boss to occupy office gossip for a week.
The two ladies burst back into life and after much tearing and watching, Reggie was striding across the hall towards what looked like three Parisian pissoirs bolted together to form a trio of voting booths. 

'How do, Reggie,' croaked Tommy Dexter, emerging from trap three as Reggie approached. Perfect timing my old mate.'
'Perfect timing for what Tommy?' enquired Reggie widening his grin.
'Giving me a hand with this 'ere voting business. Have you seen what's on this ballot paper? It's like trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls.'

Reggie glanced at his copy for the first time and gasped. 'Good grief! I see what you mean. It looks like the race card for the 3.15 at Wetherby.'
The two friends wedged themselves tightly into one stall and began scrutinising the runners and riders. 

'Let's start with what we recognise and then move onto what we don't,' said Reggie, taking calm control of the situation. 'We've got nine different candidates on this list and as far as I can see, there's only three that I recognise; Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems. We've basically got a three horse race with six also rans here Tommy; are you voting Labour like you've always done?'
'Not unless I have to,' replied Tommy. 'I fancied a change this time if there was anything that took my fancy, but I've never heard of most of this lot. What's this Alliance for Green Socialism all about, and this English Democrat Party. And this lot down here, the Christian People's Movement; sounds like something you accidentally step in outside the Co-op.'

'Search me,' replied Reggie. 'Have you read up on any of this lot, you know, actually read all the bumf they shove through the door?'

'I've been overrun with it Reggie. Great piles of glossy fantasy on the door mat every time I come home. I've had enough to insulate the loft. I read the first few and then realised they were all making the same fake promises, while being photographed outside the school or the library or pointing at a pothole with a pained expression.'

'It's the silly slogans that annoy me most Tommy, 'Make Giggleswick Great Again' doesn't quite cut the mustard any more does it. I want honesty Tommy, someone who tells me they won't be able to fix anything, but they'll do their best not to make it any worse. That's what I want to hear.'

'I wouldn't mind slogans so much Reggie, if they were honest ones. The first candidate that tells me I should vote for him because his lot are slightly less useless than the last lot, most definitely gets my vote.'

The two were on a roll now and the raised voices and guffaws dribbling from the pissoirs were attracting disapproving glances from the Presiding Officer and his handmaidens. Reggie ploughed on with heightening disregard.                                                            
'Do you think it really makes any difference who we actually vote for Tommy? I mean, we've done this more times than we can count now and I don't remember a single occasion when it actually made any difference to our lives.'

'None whatsoever,' replied Tommy, with absolute certainty. 'I've voted for steak for forty years now and all they've ever delivered is bloody limp salad. Best they've ever done is promised me a new chef the next time I gave them an earful on the front step.'

Reggie laughed and glanced over at officialdom, giving them a thumbs up and a broad grin. Tommy stared at him with his finest puzzled expression. 

'Didn't you recognise Norman when you booked in?' enquired Reggie mischievously, nodding in a Fairisle direction.
'Norman who?'
'Norm Shuttleworth, our horn rimmed Presiding Officer. Surely you remember that time I tipped my bowl of hot sago into his crotch and then got suspended for a week?'
'Well bugger me. Is that Norm Shuttleworth. I remember that, in this very room if I'm not mistaken. Wasn't it something to do with that lovely blonde lass with the big you-know-whats..... Lizzie somebody I think it was?'

'Lizzie Lightcliffe, Tommy. The stuff dreams were made of, wet or dry. I fancied her something rotten, and that little weirdo over there did too. A bowl of hot sago soon sorted him though. Wonderful stuff . Gets straight to the crux of the problem. Frog spawn, we used to call it, and it certainly had Norm hopping around.'

'You'd better let the UN know then Reggie. The essential requisite for every peacemaker.'
'Good idea Tommy. The threat of a visit from the  sago men would have Putin and that orange idiot in the States running for their fortified summer palaces.'

Tommy looked up from his close scrutiny of the ballot sheet with a look of mild concern on his face. 
'Do you think there might be any potential orange idiots on here Reggie. Someone who'll end up sending the Territorials into Settle to quell the unrest and replace Glynis in the Library with a stooge?'
There was a split second's silence and then both men burst into raucous laughter of such intensity that the Presiding Officer had to unzip his pencil case and begin laying out the contents into serried ranks across the formica parade ground.

The two pals finally settled down to business, and after very careful consideration, Tommy, now determined to make a difference in this neck of the woods, placed his cross against the name of a chap standing for the Giggleswick Raffia Party, for the simple reason that the name made him smile and he ran the newsagents shop where he bought his Lottery ticket. 

Reggie, perhaps the more cautious of the two, went for his usual and cast his lot in favour of the Conservatives, not because he thought they deserved his vote, or that they were more capable of governance than anyone else, but because they'd been running this area for as long as he could remember, not much ever changed, and that was just how he liked it. Democracy, Reggie always thought, was simply a process of choosing someone to take the blame when it all went wrong, and Reggie preferred the quiet life where not much ever did. 

The two vacated the pissoirs in the best of spirits and clattered their way across the vast expanse of parquet floored assembly hall towards the two black ballot boxes perched on yet another dining table. The two posted their ballots in as dramatic a way as possible, smiling at Norm and his maidens as they did so. 
'Democracy Norm. What would we do without it?' cried Reggie triumphantly.
'And sago , Reggie. Don't forget sago.' grinned Tommy.

Hinge and Bracket watched with carefully suppressed amusement as Norm hastily reloaded his pencil case.