Jayne Dowle: How the political world looks through the eyes of children

We were watching television the other day and he turned to me very

seriously and said, "So, who are you going to vote for?"

I replied that I hadn't quite made my mind up yet. I was silently wondering how I was going to explain the nuances of whether our Labour candidate really is a parachute-in from London, or if there was any point in voting Liberal Democrat round here, or how Independent one of our local election candidates actually is.

"Well, Mum," he added, "if I was you, I'd vote for the blue ones,

because it looks like they are winning."

If only life was as simple as Jack imagines. He thinks that politics is like football. You support a team because they are doing well, pick your colour and away you go.

But when I couldn't give him an absolute answer, he wanted to know

more. I could see that this was turning into a conversation with potentially more pitfalls than a sex education talk.

I tried to explain that this General Election was very complicated. Millions of people, like Mum, hadn't quite decided what to do yet because they liked some things about one party, but then there were other things they didn't like at all.

"So, how do the parties decide what they are going to like and not like?" was the next question.

You try explaining that one to a seven-year-old without confusing him – or possibly, scarring him for life. I summoned up the basics of my British Government and Politics A-level and tried to explain conviction politics.

As I did so, it struck me how different Jack's first proper experience of a General Election is from mine.

I was 11 in 1979. It stands out for me because I spent most of the campaign helping my Uncle Walt, a Labour Party stalwart, shove leaflets through doors. I desperately wanted to go round in the black car with the loudspeaker on it, but sitting outside the polling station on the big day was almost as exciting. It was a proper grown-up job, ticking people off a list as they turned up to vote.

There are probably rules against employing child labour at polling stations these days, but that experience at the sharp end shaped my earliest concept of the political process.

Jack already has a clearly-defined sense of what is right and wrong. He represents his class on the school council, and has a totally different take on participatory politics to my nave childhood view. He

understands that his own role in democracy is important, and that it is his job to take on board his classmates' grievances and get something done about them.

Until the industrial unrest of the early 1980s, when my Dad, a

steelworker, was on strike, I didn't really understand that we all have a right to speak up for what we believe in.

But for all his growing awareness, the world of Westminster is as remote to Jack as the Moon. He has seen the Houses of Parliament in London, and has sussed out that it is where politicians work. But when he sees Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg debating on the television, he finds it difficult to tell any difference between the three of them. To him, they are three middle-aged men who look vaguely as if they might be friends of Daddy.

How to choose the one you like best? That was the next question. His four-year-old sister, Lizzie, is firmly decided. She likes David Cameron because she thinks he is the best-looking.

If the political strategists ever wanted proof that you have to be well-presented to succeed in modern politics, they would only need to speak to my daughter. She truly is a child of the visual age. By the time she is 11 herself, she will be scoring the candidates' hair out of 10, like a judge on The X-Factor.

Neither of my children, as yet, has a hope of getting their heads round the fact that beyond the presidential-style debates and the big guns mouthing off on the news, is a multi-layered political system which doesn't mean that the person you like best on the telly gets to take

the prize. Tomorrow morning in our house will be like the day after a big football match. Jack will come down for breakfast and demand to know who won. So wish me luck, because I may have to explain what a

hung Parliament is over the Cheerios.

But for Jack's sake, and his sister's and for the sake of every child in the country, we should all remember that the decisions we make today will affect every single one of them.

It is not just your future you are voting for, it is their future, too.