AS FAR as West Dorset voters seem to be concerned just a couple more notches on the excitement scale and they could work themselves up into a state of apathy.

The candidates all seem to have all adopted profiles so low that they really should take to bandaging themselves from head to toe. That way we might, at least, have a chance of spotting them when they are allowed out to roam the streets without restraint.

I had thought of voting tactically in order to keep a boring candidate out but I’ve got no chance with that one. As a bunch they are about as exciting as a row of Brussels Sprouts on a supermarket shelf.

Things just haven’t been the same since the old Raving Loony Party changed its name to UKIP. Judging by his photograph their candidate is never going to earn the nickname ‘Smiler’. Still, he tells us, that he finds expenses cheating “contemptible”. UKIP would know all about that in view of the shenanigans of their MEPs. I expect that Monsieur Farage feels exactly the same.

The sitting member, Big Ollie, seems to have given up the ghost completely and run to ground. The Tory party have sent this household just the one leaflet – it was addressed to my 17 year old daughter who will not be qualified to vote until some four months after the polls close. Money to burn eh? The pair of us that actually are enfranchised have yet to hear a word from the lad.

So far even that crooner who lives in Burton hasn’t intervened with a scheme that would prevent the invisible, yet very well connected, Tory candidate from keeping his tennis court in the style to which it has become accustomed. Still there’s time yet.

In the rather vain hope of re-naming his house Duncurin a sawbones from Dorchester is standing on behalf of the Red Menace. In this neck of the woods he has even less chance of being returned than I have of being nominated for the Abstainer of the Year award.

Still things might be looking up, the Greens are due to hold a mass meeting in the telephone box outside Bridport Post Office, one or two Liberal activists have bought new sandals for the hustings and at the merest hint of a scent of power and UKIP have taken to driving around in a very old and battered van playing a piece of music that could be anything from the National Anthem to Roll out the barrel the reproduction is so bad it really is impossible to tell.

So election fever has given West Dorset a miss this year, thankfully. We can all sleep on regardless, there’s not much going on around  here.

Editor’s Note: Candidates standing for West Dorset in the 2010 General Election campaign are Dr Oliver Letwin (Conservative), Dr Sue Farrant (Liberal Democrat), Dr Steve Bick (Labour), Oliver Chisholm (UKIP) and Susan Greene (Green).