Vote!

Yes, we're veering towards that time of the political cycle when every serial handshaking, flesh-pressing potential member of the House of Parliament gravy train crawls out from the woodwork and smiles endlessly at anyone who may or may not be looking in order to win their support (and vote), and gain election to that most fabled of expenses accounts, the House of Commons.
I'm aware that essentially, most of them are cut from the same cloth, have pretty small differences in policy detail, and will happily promise you the earth which they can't deliver, but that doesn't mean you should just ignore them and hope they'll go away. As Paris here so eloquently puts it, you really should do your civic duty. The simple reason being, if you're not up to speed in some way with what's going on, you don't really have the right to complain about it any more. And the very best way to keep the MPs honest is to be able to call their bluff whenever you can.
Hopefully this time will be different. We can see after the leader debates that the format has given rise to the possibility of a real 3 party system, and however the 'old skool' Tory and Labour folks want to paint it, this is a good thing. Why? Because at the very least it is a change, and the one thing we have all come to realise in these harder times is that we simply can't continue as we have been. So change, in whatever form, is a necessity.
So get out, use your vote, have a say. Then you can feel justified indignation when whichever Muppets get in begin to make a mess of it all over again...