FROM a near 36 hour adrenaline fuelled, from carefully planned to random panic, experience of Election Days over 30 odd years, my experience of democracy is far more leisurely these days.

I think I understand my values & my outlook on life:- don't much like bullies, want every young person to have opportunities to be socially mobile, get angry with any young person who doesn't take any & every opportunity offered to & created by them.

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I believe in freedom, justice, individual & collective rights & responsibilities.

But am I out of step, either barking up the wrong tree or just "barking"!

At a 70th birthday party the other night I was sat with an old pal of mine, he's an attractive mix of telling it how it is & being quite reflective.

The usual celebration shenanigans were going on MC'd by a guy who seemed hell bent on embarrassing the birthday boy & as many others as possible.

Hoping not to be picked on, PLEASE, we got talking about songs, little experiential episodes in our lives & other similar vignettes.

Things our children had done, said, places we'd been to, little things that had made us laugh & cry.

So, Softie, explain what's all that got to do with David, Ed, Nick & Co? Well, not a bloody lot, it would appear!

Is my hearing failing? Well, actually it is, but what I've hardly heard about over the last month or so is things that do make you laugh & cry, values, principles & all those "higher", possibly more ethereal things.

Do we love, respect, trust & value ourselves & one another? Is there a greater good than self interest? I believe there should be a social safety net for the weak & vulnerable but no feather bed for the lazy & idle. So, is that that till 2020?