Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Stop promising change

Speaking of the election, thus far I'm totally uninterested. I wish I could say why. I usually really enjoy elections. Maybe I'm too satisfied? Maybe what I need is a swift kick in the pants - that is, a result I really hate - to get me interested?

The closest I've come to any interest was the other night when a couple of Fine Gael campaigners came to my door. They excitedly told me that they believed the "time is right for change". So I asked, "Change what?" I looked right at the man aged about 60 and asked him point blank if at any time when he was young could he have imagined things being as good as they are in Ireland today. He muttered something about the health system, etc. and I said that maybe we need a few tweaks here and there, but essentially things are going well.

This is my problem. I'm not a fan of government by monopoly, but I have this sneaking suspicion that the opposition is so desperate to make its mark that they'll totally mess things up. They make it sound like they're promising a revolution.

I'd be happier if the opposition parties campaigned on a slogan of "A bit of tweaking, a bit of pruning, but really we can do this too. No radical changes." They'd probably get my vote.