Hoping to avoid reporting on election

FEARS of an impending general election have sent our newsroom into something of a tizz.

I, however, remain unmoved and, hopefully, will swerve the myriad election stories currently being flung at reporters. That is because I have very little grasp of the complexities of the British political system.

Jeremy Corbyn looks like my old geography teacher. Boris Johnson sports two haircuts which, combined, look like a pair of hamsters at a rave. That is all I need to know.

I lost interest long ago after realising whoever you vote for, the politicians always get in.

Until March, I believed Brexit was a breakfast cereal.

It will be hard to avoid becoming snared in the election coverage, but 45 years as a reporter has bestowed on Yours Truly a certain low cunning.

Our political writers may know the name of every cabinet and shadow cabinet member, but I know knowledge can be feigned. When hopelessly out of your depth, move fast and look concerned. Management will leave you alone.

Those who feel the above comments are rather unkind barbs to hurl at civic leaders who shape our community and work long hours to make this land a better place should consider this: Hitler was a politician.

I’m proud of shunning polling stations. This is a democracy. People have given their life for the God-given right not to vote.

Some unkind souls tell me: “You have decided not to vote, therefore you cannot pass comment on the way this country is run.”

Utter rot. I’ve never voted on X Factor, but knew Jedward were pants.

I have voted but once. In the 1990s I pledged my support for the Natural Law Party, strange coves who based their policies around transcendental meditation. I felt, at a time of mass unemployment, the NLP gave the nation a valid reason for sitting on its bum and doing nowt.

I embraced meditation: admittedly in my case, meditation while watching daytime TV, munching on pizza and guzzling super-strength lager, but meditation nonetheless.

I also liked the way they bounced up and down on their coccyx. I felt bouncing up and down on your backside would cut something of a dash in the dole queue.

I played absolutely no part in the 2017 election coverage by a committed team of Birmingham Mail and Sunday Mercury reporters – a breakneck shift that lasted until 3am – mainly because I’m considered the newspaper’s pensioner. Younger reporters feared I would doze at my computer or be tasked with taking me to the toilet.

That suited me. I have very little political interest, or understanding. I was vaguely intrigued by pub landlord Al Murray standing against Nigel Farage and even more intrigued by the UKIP leader’s repsonse: “The more, the merrier,” he grinned. That’s UKIP’s immigration policy up the spout, I thought.

But that was the only time anything vaguely political caused a flutter. For Yours Truly, it’s a topic down there with royal baby stories. Jobless, living on an estate and with three children born in a very short space of time.

Long election countdowns leave me cold.

I have a mild interest in the TV coverage, but it’s not enough to get me off my backside and walk the 100 yards to the local polling station.

Not so Sunday Mercury political guru Jonathan Walker, a man who will spearhead and co-ordinate our election coverage, a man revered and feared in equal measures by Whitehall politicians. A man appalled by my apathy.

He has been on a rollercoater ever since the Brexit crisis surfaced: months spent scrutinising thick dossiers and grilling some of the most famous faces in our main parties.

This year we will have to do without former local politics reporter Neil Elkes who has gone to pastures new.

Neil had the ability to inject humour into dry-as-dust debates. His tales have ranged from the highbrow to the hilarious. I particularly enjoyed the story of the Solihull College student whose trousers fell down while meeting then Lib Dems’ leader Nick Clegg.

Neil wrote: “Unsure whether it was an accident or a deliberate attempt to moon the Lib Dem leader, Mr Clegg simply patted him on the shoulder and moved on.”

The youth, who looked suitably mortified, paid the price for the latest fad of wearing jeans slung round your hips, thus providing a tantalising glimpse of designer underpants. When teenagers do it, it’s a fashion statement. When I do it, I’m a builder.

Mind you, there’s a big difference between proudly showing the brand “Tommy Hilfiger” on your Y-fronts waistband and displaying the words: “I’ve been to St Ives Owl Sanctuary”.

Clegg later tweeted: “Some people may not have been heeding my warnings about the need to tighten our belts.”

I only wish Margaret Thatcher and her bodyguards had shown the similar compassion when I succumbed to the same wardrobe malfunction. Admittedly, I was wearing swimming trunks and had “up the miners” scrawled on my buttocks.