Election today, then.

Michael Howard's battlebus is off the road with an out-of-date tax disc. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most people know that the election's just at the start of May? Haven't people known this, or suspected it for quite a long time?

So, when choosing a coach that's going to be on the road and potentially hundreds of miles from its base from March to May, why oh why choose a coach whose tax runs out just before the end?

"voter apathy" has been the watchword chez Hedgewitch. Oh, I care that there's an Election, I know its important and I know my vote counts* but I can't get interested in all this bruhaha.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a given that we're looking at corruption and incompetence. Iraq isn't dividing the country, but confusing it. The Tories know they can't win and are deciding to sling as much crap as possible. As Blair was desperate to say, "Shit sticks".

It seems that everyone's forgotten that the Lib Dems always stand back and let Labour and the Tories get on with it. Can't blame 'em.

The problem is that it's all being reported as if it's not a foregone conclusion, as if it's the most interesting thing that's happened in years. People will be sitting up all night, glued to Peter Snow's swingometer, vastly over-analysing every result, every exit poll, every morsel of information to breaking point.

But we know what's going to happen. Blair will return to No 10 (OK, No 11). Nothing will change. We'll be in for another five years (and as he's promised to resign after his next term, you can rest assured it'll be every day of five years) of the same old same old.

The only interest I've got is whether my prediction of the Tory slide into political obscurity takes place. It's the best chance in recent times, with a Thatcher frontbencher back in charge for the first time since John Major to bury them without trace.

Jeremy Vine focussed on the doorstepping activists yesterday on his Radio 2 show, and they all talked about how positive the feedback had been, how everyone they spoke to was going to vote for their party and everyone was mentioning the war.

Let's do an exercise: Imagine you're doing your shopping, or on lunch and up strides a flashing-eyed fool in a bad suit and a big yellow rosette. They ask you if you've got a minute and in a moment of weakness you say yes. Seconds later, you realise how stupid you've been and that your egg and bacon muffin from Benji's is getting cold. Activist No.1 asks you what you think are the most important issues are in this election. You come up with the first bullshit off the top of your head. Iraq. Blair's a lying shit. (is this the first thing on your mind because you actually believe it, or because it was the first thing on the news this morning?) Oh goody goes Activist No.1, did you know that a Labour government would do this shitty thing and that shitty thing and would you consider voting Lib Dem because they're going to do this nice thing and that good idea and the other badly costed crap. And you go, yes, OK then, byee.

Activist No.1 notches up another interested party, another potential vote. You're voting Monster Raving Loony Screaming Blancmange For All, but they're not to know that.

Have you noticed what's disappeared off the News Radar lately? Terrorist alerts. Have we heard anything about stepped up security during Election Day? Do we know Al Quaeda (who quite like disrupting major events) isn't planning anything? Is the person in the next booth wearing a semtex vest? Not so long ago, in another country, the chances were that the person in the next booth not only might well be wearing a semtex vest, but might well be holding a gun to your head. It could be that your vote was the last thing you ever do.

Funny thing is, the reason they were getting shot and blown up is the same reason we're not. Blair. Well, OK, Blair and Bush. Just lately 1500 dead kurds were dug up in Iraq. Victims of Saddam. So there's no WMD buried in the Iraqi desert. I think we know what is, though, don't we? How many hundreds of those mass graves will we never know about? How do the numbers compare? Have the Iraqi "insurgents" killed as many of our troops and each other as Saddam did yet? How many of them are actually Iraqis as opposed to foreign fundamentalists coming to Iraq to have a free pop at the Yanks? I'd love to go to Iraq and actually ask as many people as possible if they are actually happy Saddam's gone.

(Annoyingly, I can't find a gif that says "I don't fucking care what Bush says")

So, vote, don't vote, spoil your card or stand in the street complaining loudly about the state of the country. Sit up until dawn watching the coverage, only to find that you could have set the alarm for 6am and found out as much from the three minute hourly bulletin as from the last eight hours of Election coverage.

I will be voting Lib Dem because I will be voting just yards from the Rover plant. I will pay scant attention to the Results Coverage and will probably spend the evening surfing the Interweb and watching Desperate Housewives. I will also be sniffing and moaning because inexplicably, I've come down with bloody flu.

HATCHAAAA snuff Where's my Soothers?

*-bollocks does it.