Nelson's Column: this election is about getting voters to go swinging in the rain

Trooping to a ballot box is like jetting off on a summer holiday. The experience is so much more agreeable when the sun is out.

Just as you don’t lay on a beach if it’s peeing down, so you’re less likely to paddle to a polling station when it means wading through puddles.

Winter really does put a dampener on election fervour .

That’s why conventionally they are not held after the clocks go back or until they’ve gone forward.

A spot of unpleasant weather might seem a poor excuse for those who died for the right to vote such as Sufragette Emily Davison by throwing herself under George V’s horse.

Even NASA astronauts manage it from 254 miles up in the International Space Station thanks to a Texan law allowing them to beam digital ballot papers back to Houston Mission Control.

Those who felt strongly about the poor quality of their representatives have used protest votes to elect a black rhino as a Sao Paulo city councillor in Brazil, and a goat succeeded by a poodle to lead the republic of Whangamomona in New Zealand.

Here voting is seen as an unremarkable piece of stitching in the fabric of adult life.

Which is as it should be.

In a true democracy you also have the right not to vote, a concept alien to Australians who are fined £10.65 if they don’t.

That means you are entitled to hide under the duvet on polling day if the alternative is getting drenched.

But please don’t.

It’s what Boris Johnson wants you to do because Labour voters are more likely to stay at home.

There are also practical reasons why December is a no-no.

And not just because polling stations are booked for nativity plays. No one wants to open their door on a dark and stormy night to find canvassers not carol singers.

Postal votes might get tangled in Christmas mail which means taking them to polling stations in person defeating the object of the original exercise.

They then have to go back to the local authority to be verified and counts will be delayed.

But history shows this timing is not always great for the Tories either.

The last December election in 1923 saw Stanley Baldwin throw away a comfortable majority to allow Ramsay McDonald to form Labour’s first administration.

In February 1974 Ted Heath went to the country 30 MPs up but it was Labour’s Harold Wilson who walked into No10.

Johnson may be cocky now , but come December 13th Jeremy Corbyn could be the guy who came in from the cold.

What a tangled web we weave

The internet began 50 years ago last week when one Californian computer texted another for the first time.

The word was meant to be LOGIN, and in a foretaste of the future the system crashed at LO.

But it was the beginning of the life-changing revolution with public web access by 1991 and half of humanity now connected to it.

It has sometimes been a force for bad, but more for good – like the printing press, the invention it rivals.

Over the next 50 years we’ll have to watch it, though.

Our homes will be controlled online putting us at risk of cyber terrorism.

A hacked phone won’t kill you, but a hacked oven might.

States will take control under the guise of preventing cyber attack, as China has and Vladimir Putin wants, by switching off access to foreign sites.

Cyberspace will now be the biggest player in this General Election.

Brace yourselves for the inevitable outpouring of fake news.

Money talks and tells a sorry tale

The key difference between Labour and Tories became starkly apparent from two emails which landed in my inbox 90 minutes apart.

They were begging letters from Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.

Jeremy suggested donations from £1 to £8.

Johnson’s appeal for dosh began at £20, rose swiftly to £50, £100 then £250.

From those figures alone it’s not hard to work out which party seeks to represent the many not the few.

Only the top five per cent of wage earners would not miss £250 – the ones John McDonnell will target for a little extra income tax if he becomes Chancellor.

When I asked Jeremy Corbyn if what he has planned is nothing less than a socialist revolution, but a very British one, he thought that summed up his ambitions exactly.

And if that’s what you want, too, this election may be the last chance to get it.

It’s a plod for Boris to find PCs

Boris Johnson needs 200,000 applicants to recruit 20,000 new rozzers as only one in ten get selected.

A tall order to make the long arm of the law longer.

Boris trumps rivals in beer race

The US tests “likeability” of presidential candidates by asking voters if they’d knock back a beer with them.

Pollsters findoutnow.co.uk revealed only 18 per cent want a jar with Boris Johnson and fewer still with Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn.

Don’t worry lads.

Donald Trump won…but only with 16 per cent.

Parliament goes to the dogs

Tory MP Eleanor Laing is putting some bulldog spirit into her pitch to replace John Bercow as Commons Speaker.

And some labrador and retriever. She hasn’t decided which.

Eleanor has run a Twitter poll to choose a cat or dog for the Commons. And the dog has it, the dog has it, by 54 – 46 per cent.

If she wins tomorrow’s election only the breed is in question.

Good luck, pet.