Well I excercised my right to vote this morning, as I always do, on the same sort of principal as I always finish the food on my plate if I've put it there - there're women in Afghanistan who would give their eye teeth for what I take for granted. And in fact, although it's slipping into the realms of history now, I have personally known English women who were alive at a time when women couldn't vote here - women of my own grandmother's generation.
So I went to do my democratic duty in our local elections. I can't say I know very much about what's going on locally, except Croydon Council made a pig's ear of the education budget, and we are one of the worst areas in the country for recycling.
No-one had taken much interest in my vote. We received only one pamphlet through the door, telling me about the candidates for a political party I have never voted for in my life.
So we went to the polling station and collected our cards, and I thought rather briefly before putting my 3 crosses in place. The reasoning was random. I voted for the one Green Party candidate, on the grounds I do care about recycling, and want to protect the woodland around our house. I voted for the only candidate who actually lives in Kenley, our ward. And I voted for one candidate who represents the party I usually support. So there they were, votes for 3 different political parties (including one representing a party I had never previously voted for in my life).
It just goes to show that a) local politics aren't quite the same as national politics, and b) I have no expectation of being dragged from my bed and shot out of hand for not supporting a particular power group.
By the way, my Grandma was not, as far as I know, a suffragette, and I know that in later life she refrained from voting, as did Grandad, because they knew their votes would "cancel each other out." She was, however, sacked from a job in a laundry back in 1920, for calling her colleagues out on strike for the right to belong to a Trade Union. Which may account for me being our school NASUWT rep - but that's another story.