What’s your colour?
Well, it’s official. We're going to have an election. The scurrilous rumour was confirmed with a postcard that came into my letter box the other day.
I expect to get many such postcards, all of them passionate, (as you would expect) offering different perspectives. For all our rolling of eyeballs and heavy sighs, it’s great that we live in such a colourful democracy.
In my dotage, I’m more aware of the different colours that different parties sport. This is an excellent marketing instrument and you know immediately which clan your postcard is from.
But the thing I come back to in the midst of the high vis vest, words, hard hats, and my beloved postcards, is the people behind the various hues. While I might dispute reverently and appropriately, while I might dis/agree passionately, I must never forget that these are only academic thrusts and parries. Each of the folk who front up behind a microphone, or splash around with words on a screen, has feelings and emotions. Cut any of them and they bleed. Tell them a half-decent joke and they smirk. They have relatives and friends, they engage in jocularity and tears. Growing up, they have had their hearts broken and probably broken a few hearts along the way.
Sure the postcards are helpfully colour-coded as I triage them across the desk. But it's the person behind the colour that’s the most important thing. To all of those who are running, no matter what your colour or policy, all the very best. To those of us who vote, remember that first and foremost, at the top of the ballot paper, these are real flesh and blood human beings, exactly like the one you see in the mirror.