Things can only get better?

We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate

I don’t really want to come across as one of those moaning, rent-a-comment, talking head politicians that the news channels are churning out for our amusement in the run up to the election, but, really, isn’t there something just a bit broken about a lot of this country?

Is it so wrong to want stuff to, you know, just work, properly, on time -ish, and the way it’s supposed to?

Is it so wrong to want to be able to discuss, with an actual doctor, medical symptoms that have the potential to be very serious indeed, instead of waiting 48 hours for your e-consult form to work its way to the top of the pile?

Would it be bad of me to hope that, when my friend took her little ones to the beach on a boiling hot inset day that they were able to actually swim or paddle, instead of just looking at a sea whose brown sludgy appearance had nothing to do with the reflection of the – clear blue – sky?

Am I a bad person for cursing the highway planners who decided to close two of the four possible routes to my office, sending me either via a 10-mile diversion, or through a picturesque but tiny Kent village and over a 15th century single lane bridge? That’s 45 minutes of my life that I’m never getting back again.

How is my friend supposed to find herself a new rental property when people are snapping rentals up before they’ve even viewed them, so scarce are they on the ground?

Is it wrong to wish for a DVLA system that actually works, so that my daughter can book a practical driving test that’s actually in the same time zone as her, and, preferably, before her theory test runs out? There has been a lot written about this, but to be honest, I thought they were just horror stories to fill the Daily Mail’s ‘shocking stories of broken Britain’ quota.

Am I unreasonable to get annoyed at waiting a month before the train company refunded me the money for the ticket that their system charged me twice, despite me contacting the train company within 10 minutes of it happening? They weren’t even prepared to listen to me until five working days had passed, to ‘give the system a chance to work itself out’. Spoiler alert – it didn’t.

How am I being overly optimistic to expect that a problem with a late relative’s pension could be sorted out within four years of their death? I kid you not. Four years, and it’s still not sorted.

We can’t still be expected to blame Covid  for all this, surely? I know the driving test issue started with the pandemic when tests were, understandably, cancelled wholesale. But Covid was four years ago. By now it’s either indolence, indifference or incompetence. I’m not sure which is worse.

Whoever gets to be in charge of the country after this Thursday has their work cut out to stop us thinking that they are all the same, that nothing ever changes, and that the hand cart is heading straight for you know where.

Clearly, I’m being defeatist. I mean all the parties vying for election have produced their manifestos, and all have clear ideas about how things are going to get better. So that’s all good, then.

*Flicks idly through all the manifestos* Oh.