I really didn’t want to blog about this. It looked like too much hard work getting the facts right, doing the research, checking the spelling. But two of the blog’s three regular readers are campaigning for it, so I am going to bow to the will of the majority. You’ll be familiar with the subject. MP’s outrageous expenses claims and the effect it is having on voter confidence. It is predicted that at the next elections we’ll be so disgusted with politicians that no one will vote. Which could lumber me with a ton of extra work.

Back in the general election campaign of 2005, there was a wave of apathy in the early stages. We’d heard it all before, we were tired of the same old arguments, we didn’t care.

Seizing upon the zeitgeist, I launched www.apathyparty.co.uk to a fanfare of indifference. Apart from one objector who was standing as an apathy candidate and had been too lazy to register the domain, it did quite well. When the votes were counted, 38.7 percent of the electorate had signed up by the simple act of not having voted for anyone.

Since then, the website has gone from strength to strength, receiving up to several hits a day and gathering a steady stream of no emails at all. Someone did email to ask why it hadn’t been updated but I didn’t bother to reply as they had rather missed the point.

At the last general election, Labour received 37 percent of the votes cast. But that’s only 22.7 percent of the total electorate, which means that the apathy vote was 70 percent higher. Unless we’re very careful, the Apathy Party could find itself facing a landslide at the next election. In view of this, it’s time to make some pledges on the subject of candidate expenses and make sure we are squeaky clean from the word go.

For a start, claiming expenses involves pro-active stuff like filling in paperwork and finding a pen. This immediately reduces the chances of getting our snouts in the trough.

I doubt any of us can be bothered to do gardening so we won’t be requiring an unfeasible amount of horse manure.

Unless the washing machine has flooded, none of us has a moat so it won’t need cleaning.

No self-respecting member of the party could be faffed to move to Westminster so that’s the problem of second homes taken care of.

The idea of claiming for an enormous plasma television is quite attractive but it would mean going down to Comet to do some research.

I suppose one or two members may be tempted to claim for exotic biscuits but, to be frank, they’re more likely to look in the back of the kitchen cupboard to see if there’s an old Hobnob kicking around.

As for wanting the hedge trimmed around the helipad … unlike politicians, apathetics inhabit in the real world.

So that’s our promise. When we sweep into power we will be thoroughly above board. Unless it’s easier to walk around the board, in which case we’ll be that instead.

The Apathy Party. Sit down and be counted.