BLOWING IN THE WIND

emerge as the victor. Spain, along with several other countries has a 24 ‐ hour blackout period on the day before the elections.

It is euphemistically referred to local‐ly as a day of reflection, although I don’t think much reflection is actually taking place. It is probably more like a day and night of sleepless nail biting, like kids wondering if Santa will come during the night, or have they been naughty and will be passed by?

ed, what questions they have been asked and how these questions have been constructed, how the data has been analysed, how representative the sample group is, and so I could go on. Not least, is who has commissioned it and is the aim to inform or to influence and manipulate? Put in a nutshell, I re‐ally don’t trust opinion polls or the re‐sults they publish. Who is going to win?

“The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind....”

Equally, I get asked on almost a daily basis, “Whom should we vote for?” What a question to ask a standing politician who is presenting again in this election! I think this is a form of Chinese water torture, given that I can’t give an answer unless it were to pro ‐mote another party.

It seems that politicians, and wannabe politicians are getting excited about the prospect of the battle, the campaigning, all hoping that they will

I find myself asking whether the polls reflect the people or if the people re ‐flect the polls? Do the polls really exist to inform, or has someone worked out that many people don’t decide on their voting choices until the last minute and that the polls influence one way or an‐other their final decision? I think that the latter is probably true and hence the mania for polling.

So, I can’t say who will win, as it isn’t up to the politicians or to the pollsters. People will make their own decisions either through custom, persuasion, ran‐domness, or logical analysis. I think I would rather try to guess the winning lottery numbers.