The 2010 Election. My last word.

Forgive me for another political blog post. Social networking frenzies, televised debates and the prospect of submitting my first general election vote have made me very excited. Well, apart from in the past few days. No, since the last leaders' debate, I've felt quite petrified.

I really shouldn't be. I am confident that this country has enough altruistic souls to vote for MPs who won't cut vital public services. I am confident that this country is mostly made up of people who want all to be treated fairly. I am confident that the people of this country want to see the world flourish. And I am confident that this country is made up of accepting, peaceful people, with the maturity to invest their precious vote in a party who will restore a sense of dignity to our parliament.

So what am I scared of? I'm scared that I'm hoping for too much. I'm scared that all of these brilliant, important and very worthy voters are being misled not only by the presumed safety of familial voting traditions, but by certain members of the mainstream media.

As the papers have shown their support for parties, you'd have to have been living under Eric Pickles' blubber for decades to have been shocked at any alliances.

Also, you'd have to be similarly incapacitated to not realise that many of these publications have been willing to disproportionately represent incidents on the campaign trail long before they pledged their allegiances . Charlie Brooker's column this week begins with a nod to just one example of how skewed the media's representation of this election has become.

And another more serious example of warped press has been highlighted by Benjamin Cohen of Channel 4 news (and founder of PinkNews). This is the recent non-story of gay-curer Tory candidate Phillipa Stroud who has sent Twitter in a frenzy, yet will never receive as much media lampooning as Brown did during Bigot-gate.

The leadership debates provided the media with another opportunity to manipulate voters. We've been encouraged to pick apart leaders of the party instead of looking to our own local candidates' policies. This would be great if we voted in a presidential system, but we don't. Obama's name has been dropped in this election run-up more times than Katie Price's knickers, and it is useful to compare the US and UK. The pertinent dissimilarities are that we don't vote for our leader, and we're a tiny island. But these just make the similarities all too eerie: we have just as many issues, a similar gaggle of nutcases running for office, and the same media fatcats in charge of our press.

I'm not disillusioned with politics, but I'm concerned that we're looking to partisan news sources to tell us about the three men most of us will never have the chance to vote for.

The 2010 election is one where we have never before had so much information readily available to us. But be careful where you get it from.

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*In case you don't know, this latter incident is when Brown called a spade a spade. I think he should have just called her an idiot and left it at that. If you were to meet the Prime Minister, a man with a fancy education and a right nice suit, with the BBC filming you, you'd surely not think to say something so crass as: 'These eastern Europeans, where are they all flocking from?'

** I put a photo of Paris Hilton up top so you'd pay attention to what I write.

Gordon Brown Loves Mephedrone

MEPHADROZ

Mephedrone is everywhere. On toilet seats, mirrors, keys, cards and notes. In students' noses, down raver's throats. Most importantly, for the future of this country, it's in our Prime Minister's head.

Two young men from Scunthorpe died on Monday. Mephedrone's been cited as the foremost cause. In each article you will read on this, buried somewhere beneath the fourth or fifth paragraph, there's mention that the guys had been drinking heavily and also taken methadone before they died. Without delving into the scientific specifics of these substances, meph is an upper, meth is a downer. People take uppers before they take downers. A property which the two drugs share, is that, unlike booze, MDMA or ketamine (etc), they affect the user immediately. Thus follows that many people are blaming the breakfast for what essentially was the dinner's fault.

So why meph and not meth? Because meph is new and intriguing. It's the toyboy to heroin's geriatric. And we're all cougars. And that's an analogy too far. What I mean is, if you're in the newsagents buying some ciggies and you're faced with a headline as ridiculous as 'Meow Meow Raver Drug Kills Kids', and you (rightfully) don't know what it means, and you get some change back for your cigarettes, you'll happily pay a couple of quid to find out what The Daily Twat even meant by that headline. On the very basic principle that new news shifts papers, mew mews will bring profit to tabs and broadsheets alike.

Gurndon Brown

I am not rushing to the defence of mephedrone. Anything intoxicating enough to work as a get-out-of-school-free card for up to 180 kids needs to undergo testing. And it goes without saying that the government is responsible for any restrictions imposed upon a substance. So jolly good then, that Peter Mandelson has piped up. Yes, Peter Mandelson. The man who resides in the cabinet as Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary. He's said that he'd never heard of meph before, but that his cabinet will: "take any action that is needed... to avert such tragic consequences occurring in the future". Well that's awfully nice of you, Mandy, but who overdosed and made you Health Secretary?

"Aaand pinch...aaannnd sniff.."

Why isn't Alan Johnson, the actual person in charge of Health policy, talking about mephedrone after these two deaths? He's had "grave concerns" about the drug for at least a month, but he's keeping schtum for now. Maybe he doesn't want to face the inevitable double embarrassment that I'll endeavour to illustrate in the next two sentences. Firstly, mephedrone's been available in the UK for long enough for it to filter down to kids aged 8. It must be incredibly easy to manufacture as it's selling for as little as £7 a gram in some places. Secondly, Johnson's drugs advisory council has been made up of many people with no scientific expertise since he sacked Prof David Nutt. Why did he sack Prof Nutt? Because Labour's up shit creek and to have a scientist with a calm, rational approach to what really causes danger to our society on your side isn't going to win those pesky contested seats.

Peter Mandelson's a stumbling block for many voters. We haven't actually voted for to be in our present government, yet he's literally Lording around Westminster with a phone directory's worth of titles and a place set for him at nearly every committee and subcommittee going. By attaching 'Mandelson' to stories about the government restricting a 'killer' substance, he's mincing into many voters' good books.

MM-Cat

It is also worth noting that meph is getting a bad rap (ha) because it isn't a controlled substance, but meth is. Meth is used as part of drug addiction rehabilitation, as a substitute for heroin. It's given out by the NHS to ex-junkies trying to wean themselves off of the juice. How these boys got their hands on meth will inevitably lead back to a story of government-sanctioned ineptitude. Whether it's a crooked pharmacist, inconsistent customs officials, or even a dodgy policeman, whoever's to blame for the drug which actually killed these boys is working in the public sector, at the taxpayers' expense.

Blaming meph also saves face in another way. Scientific tests will inevitably show that it's dangerous enough to be banned, so it's the perfect battle for Labour to play. As ITV1, televised debate and smear campaigns steer voters to judge party leaders by their personalities instead of their promises, shiny Cameron emerges as the frontrunner. What will work in Brown's favour, though, is if he can convert voters' many fears into effective policy in the run up to the election, as this is the only realm where he can outdo Cameron.

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Note: This article was edited the morning after I wrote it just for a little clean-up