thribble

Finally I decided who to put my 3 xs next to. 2 for the local council and 1 for the general election. You can rest assured that the councillor who claimed in a letter to me that he "didn't know what he could do to improve Crawley" did not get my vote. The most important one was decided after last night's question time. I shall leave it for the reader to guess which way I went, after:

• Charles Kennedy seemed relaxed and answered the questions easily. But then it is easy to do that when you know that you won't be prime-minister this year.
• Michael Howard made me want to punch him within 9 minutes of being on screen. Not a great record.
• Tony Blair made me laugh out loud. I was amazed that he apparantly genuinely didn't know what his government's targets are doing to the health service. I thought he looked tired, beaten down and generally fed up of this campaign. He hedged. While putting all three of them in a US-style debate would probably degenerate into playground-style "liar liar your pants on fire" cat calling, it would be good to see them have the courage to try.

So, we're off on holiday this evening. My vote is posted, and all I have to do now is relax. See you in a week.