Diary of a first-time non-voter

I’m really annoyed now the date for the election has been announced. They are going to hold it on my twenty-first birthday. It’s ruined all my plans for a good time – I mean, what sort of party will I end up having now?

Most of my guests probably won’t even come, and of those who do the majority will have been hassled by their parents to show up. Even before the party has started, those who want to spoil our fun will quickly get tired of playing May Day Monopoly, and smash up bits of the board just for something to do.

The rest of us will amuse ourselves playing the race card game and agonising over where to set up the table football. My groups of friends will all squabble among themselves even before they have started arguing between groups; there will be childish name-calling, posturing and, no doubt, a little sleaze.

Somebody will boast about how many pints he can drink and somebody else will show off by performing some silly stunt like playing football badly wearing a suit and tie.

We’ll listen to inappropriate songs that we think are trendy on the CD player until the owner of the CDs comes to demand them back. My dad will drag in somebody from an ethnic minority who we hardly know to prove that we’re not racist, and we’ll get local kids that have misbehaved to clean up the rubbish we’ve made, to help them put something back into the community.

My mum will bake me a cake decorated with Thornton’s new election line of sweets, and there will be a chocolate Tony Blair face grinning in the centre of it (anybody who hasn’t had fun will spread exaggerated rumours around the next day about how we all got sick from the food).

As the prime minister has urged politicians and candidates to appear humble and hungry, John Prescott will turn up starving and eat everything in sight (save the small piece of cake Peter Mandelson will eat wandering down the street after we force him to leave for being naughty).

Happy Birthday to me.