One of South Park’s many merits is you can often apply its episodes’ various happenings to what’s happening in current affairs or just in life generally. Recently I watched one where the school’s mascot is required to change from a PETA offending cow to a new one of the children’s choice. The main two contenders for the position of new mascot end up being a giant douche and a turd sandwich, with everyone in town hitting the campaign trails eager to use their valuable vote to secure their favourite candidate the place.

            Everyone is excited, except Stan, who is unhappy with having to choose between a giant douche and a poo. I’m fairly sympathetic to his plight, and I’m still deciding which way my vote will go in May. For the first time I’m getting interested in the elections, when previously I had let them fairly wash over me, deciding who to vote for just on opinions formed from a few snippets of manifestos. Reading about each party and their campaigns more and more I should be getting closer to an informed decision, but as I read on I get less and less sure of who I might vote for; I don’t really want to vote for any of them.

            Watching the TV debate the other night I looked on in horror as echoes of mindless programmes like X Factor bled into British politics. The set reeked of low budget cheesy game shows from the early nineties, with Alastair Stewart bouncing off the walls with all the excitement of a child on Christmas Day. Each candidate gave us their two pennies’ worth, Brown: ‘I have memorised some facts.’ Cameron: ‘Waste.’ Clegg: ‘Lib Dems – why not?’ It was shiny-faced brown nosery at its highest, and the overt drama of it is still stuck in my mind. In the end Nick Clegg won a washing machine and a weekend break to Blackpool.

As entertaining as it was I am no closer to deciding, in fact I am now even less sure. So who do I vote for? The minute I start seeing sense in one party’s economy or education plans I begin to see flaws in their others, and I’m back to square one. None of them have a set of policies that I would be happy to watch being put completely into action. I suppose the question should be who do I believe the most and who do I dislike the least?

In the South Park episode Stan gets banished from the town for refusing to vote. I don’t think the same thing would happen to me, but I don’t want to opt out simply because it’s a tough decision. I don’t like the giant douche or the turd sandwich, so maybe I’ll vote for the massive penis. Either that or the Green Party.