Only idiots would vote for my political choice?

When I’m deciding which candidate to vote for I look at their policies and promises. Naturally there won’t be any candidate that exactly matches my wishes or aspirations, so I choose the one that has a match on the things most important to me.

I imagine you do the same, although your wishes or aspirations are probably not the same as mine or might have different weightings.

It’s quite likely then that we will vote for different candidates. That does not mean that one of us is right and the other wrong, or one of us is an idiot. It just means we are different. Shades of grey, not black and white.

Once the election winners are announced there will be some people who are happy their candidate was chosen, and some will be disappointed.

What happens for the term of office then? Should I snipe at everyone who was so stupid that they disagreed with me? How will that help?

So here’s what I do and promise to continue doing.

I will not call you stupid or an idiot because we voted differently. I will not even criticise you. Because that way is anarchy. It drives a wedge between people that is difficult to remove. Friendships are lost, families are fractured and even marriages can be placed under extreme stress.

However, I will from time to time be critical of politicians who fail to deliver on their policies, and when there is a policy I strongly disagree with I will say why.

If you do the same I will respect that, and we then have a basis for talking about it.

But if you say only idiots voted the way I did then there is no easy road back.

As they say in sport, “Play the ball not the man”.