Still a few days to go and so far seventeen manifestos have arrived, in all shapes and sizes from a small booklet to a 2 inch strip of badly printed paper torn from an A4 sheet.

Decision time is approaching and after giving a fair reading to all, I discarded those that appear to live in a dreamworld, those that don't seem to understand what the capabilities of a local council are, any candidate that tells me, "My experience has been gained as a Lecturer/Union official, and any that would support the Labour party to grab a little bit of power, that hasn't left many.

Unfortunately the two proposals that I supported came from two different party's, "Scrap the MSPs and have the 59 Scottish MPs sit in Edinburgh on Scottish affairs and in Westminster on British business". I like that one, and, "Half council tax for all OAPs no council tax for over 70's", I like this one even more, check my profile for my age, but were discarded under the above rules.

The headline on the front page of my daily newspaper, "290 muggings every day in Britain".. it read.

I am left, as we all are, to answer one question. Are you, and is your community and country a better place than it was four years ago?. If not, well lets take a chance with someone else.