It turned colder, that’s where it ends

The last day of the campaign. I woke to gentle rain, the hot-snap being over. The outlook is grim. Still two boxes of leaflets undelivered yet, but there is time before the morning train to dent it. The world shrinks each day – at the start a grand vision encompassing kingdoms and oceans has now shrunk at approach of polling day to encompass a few roads to be delivered.

That is how I spend my summer nights, until tonight, while others revel.

Every election becomes a local election, street by street, house by house, voter by voter – decision finally constrained within the narrow inches of a letterbox. Parochial issues will sway the nation also – it comes down to how the shopping bag can be filled, and whether the country has improved or declined may be measured by how pitted is the street outside the voter’s house. It should not be like that, but a living nation is a nation of individuals with individual interests.

Soon the nation seem it is to elect a Parliament who care nothing for the individual, in place of corporate identities and models, from which no dissent of difference is accepted. That a nation famed for individual eccentricity should choose governors who despise that quality is, well, eccentric.

I cannot look up though. The rain is easing for now, and there are more leaflets to go, when I get back from the office – for most of us still a have to work – and then I trudge the streets again for the last time.

Still, it will be colder ere long.