Dead Horse and Badger are both, in fact, right, to some extent.

Yes, it's disturbing that after all the sacrifices that people have made over the centuries to get universal suffrage (not to mention the millions of people the world over who are still crying out for it), many people proudly declare that they're just going to throw away their vote.

On the other hand, what do we do if we feel effectively disenfranchised, in the sense that none of the available candidates are offering anything that we feel we could vote for? In the latest elections no seats were up for grabs in my ward so I couldn't vote anyway. But had I been able to vote, I wouldn't have been happy voting for any of the three major "institutions" (I used to vote Labour, but I fear those days are long gone!), and Green Party candidates are a bit thin on the ground round here!

The scramble by the "Big Three" for the rich electoral pickings of the centre in British politics has left the millions who are not of the centre, like me, out on a limb.

And given the fact that the Green Party is the fourth largest party in England, why was the BNP given significantly more publicity than them on Dimbleby's BBC election night programme, even to the extent that the BNP had their own "scoreboard" whereas the Greens were just lumped under "other"? Is this supposed to be political balance or is it just that the BNP's more "newsworthy" or "sensationalist". Perhaps if the Greens dropped their worthy causes for a while and did a bit of Paki-bashing they might get some interest shown in them by the media.