Neil McNicholas: The politicians must not betray our trust again

Just as you really don't want to see how they make sausages, or to sit in a restaurant where you can see the kitchen, we have recently been the unwilling witnesses to some of the more sordid activities in recent memory on the part of our politicians. Come election day, how do we avoid choosing more of the same?

There has been a great act of infidelity and an almost irretrievable loss of trust. It takes time for a strained relationship to mend if, indeed, it can be mended. Is there enough time for candidates to be

able to assure us, truthfully and genuinely, that they are deserving of our trust? How can we tell? How can we be sure? As with super-glue, once we have made our mark come election day, that's it, we are stuck with the consequences.

Watching our current batch of Westministerians trying to stick every available finger into every haemorrhaging hole in the dyke, or painting over every crack in the faade in the hope that we haven't noticed, would be comical if it wasn't so serious. The current predictable round of cheap party point-scoring should be condemned to the primary school playground where it belongs. We deserve better. And do our party leaders honestly think we are such simpletons that we don't recognise flimflam when we hear it, and smoke and mirrors when we see them?

Inadvertently, over the past 18 months in particular, we have seen the sausage-making and it wasn't a pretty sight. We need a new breed of politician and a new way of doing things in the hope that it will help restore some credibility, thin on the ground in politics at the best of times.

There is also a lot of cynicism to be overcome. Just as the road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions, so, too, is the road to Westminster. What is the point of participating in the democratic process if the current party whip system ensures that the policies espoused by individual MPs vanish without trace the moment they set foot in the Commons? The hand of MPs should never be forced when it comes to voting and as long as it can be then we are witnessing dictatorship not democracy.

When we look at the depths to which our political system has sunk, there is a phrase heard in parishes everywhere, "We've always done it this way, Father" – which I've always considered to be a pretty poor reason for doing anything.

Blindly putting our "x" where we have always put it could almost be irresponsible in the current political climate; we really can't afford to be that ingrained or impervious to what has been happening to our country. So, too, would voting for a minor party simply because we don't want to vote for one of the major ones.

If there was a "none of the above" option on the ballot papers instead

of having to waste a vote or choosing not to vote at all, it would at least be a way for voters to express their dissatisfaction – and those "no" votes should be counted as a measure of popular opinion. As I said before, once we have made our mark on election day, we are stuck with the consequences for years to come.

The Yorkshireism has it that "there's nowt so queer as folk" – the implications of which are a little worrying with a General Election on the horizon.

Memories can easily fade with time and old loyalties hold sway.

Regardless of their track record to date, party leaders seem to share the apparent belief that there is an audience out there who will come back for more, convinced the next performance couldn't possibly be as bad as the first.

Or, like season ticket holders at a failing football club where all season long the cry was "Never again", when the renewal letters arrive in the post guilt alone may be enough to give the team a second chance and all those miserable winter afternoons spent on the terraces watching a losing team are forgotten.

We are not interested in empty promises and baseless reassurances – too much is at stake this time around. The immediate future of our once great nation, and restoring credibility to our parliamentary system, will be in our hands in a very particular way in a matter of weeks. We, in turn, will then place the practicalities of that process into the hands of the politicians we elect. Let us hope that, for once, our trust will not be misplaced.

Neil McNicholas is a priest for St Hilda's Parish, Whitby.