Day Zero Challenge 70

Choosing challenges with a set deadline turns out to be a good idea. Challenge 70 - Read the Manifestos of the three major parties before the General Election - is a good example of this. While everything else on my list I can do pretty much any time in the next two and a half years, I was on the clock with this one. And it turned out to be not as easy as I thought.

I don't know why I expected a manifesto to be short but I did. Well I was wrong: Labour's manifesto was 76 pages, Lib Dem's was 57 and Conservative's was 113. That's a lot of reading. But when I've voted in previous years, I've always felt guilty for not knowing what the parties really stood for. Now I've read all three manifestos, I may not understand all the policies but at least I know them.

This challenge hasn't helped me choose who to vote for, I already knew. But it has confirmed that decision. There was one manifesto that stood out as being clear and understandable and that had policies that made me smile. It also happened to be the manifesto with the least backbiting about other parties. I won't say whose it was - you'll have to read them and see if you agree!