This is a very difficult choice as listening to the candidates, reading the manifestos or plan are, as Lewis Carroll commented, all “much of a muchness”.

There is no one person from either party, or coalition independents or ‘true’ independents, who has pressed that ‘button’ to make me say “yes”, “yes” and again “YES!! That is whom I am going to vote for.

It’s been almost like listening to a lot of “stuck records” or stuck MP3 tracks on an iPod. We hear what we already know are the problems but we don’t hear how they are going to be fixed. We hear how much is going to be given to us but not how this is going to be achieved.

The Bush tree we have had for over three years was no money bush. Money did not grow on its branches.

There has to be some tough and unpalatable decisions to be made to turn things around and biting the only hand that feeds you is not the answer.

Trying to get the best you can in the circumstances we are in is the only solution and you have to give to receive. Selling our soul is not the answer but sometimes you have to look forward and bite the bullet in case it comes around and hits you in the backside and you lose even what you have got.

So what are the important issues?

They have all been listed – economy, crime, environment, education, healthcare, immigration, airport, cruise ship berthing facility, dump, West Bay Road, relations with the UK, etc. The last one is probably the only topic one party differs from the rest. The United Democratic Party, or should I say the McKeeva Bush Denomination, still seems to want an outright confrontation with our mother country whilst the rest wants to mend the fences. I am surprised the question of independence has not been raised. Just independents!

We have independents fighting under various guises but jumping on the bandwagon that became popular and decries a party system that works well nearly everywhere else and favours a coalition system that breaks down nearly everywhere else.

Because our members of the Legislative Assembly have some really tough decisions to make I am not convinced a coalition can be united enough to push them through. Every doctor will tell you that there is much pain and nasty medicine to endure before you achieve a lasting cure. Can a coalition really be that united?

That is what you must decide.

Please, however, be very careful you choose people who are really up to the job, whether party or whatever flavour of independent.

Remember, too, when you vote not everyone will get a seat in cabinet. We also need a strong opposition but one who will work with the government for the benefit of the country and not oppose everything just because they didn’t think of it.

You only have to look at our past history and also see what was and is still going on in the USA senate at this moment. The only thing that got done was loss of breath.

When things get personal between who governs and who does not blinds one’s sense of right from wrong and then you lose sight of the reason you have been elected.

This is most certainly going to be the most important election we have ever faced for a very long time.

Think long and hard before placing your ‘X’.

It’s your decision and I am not going to tell you whom I think you should vote for, nor whom I support.

I do support honesty and integrity. That, I don’t mind telling you.

My ‘X’ marks that square.

God Bless the Cayman Islands and all of you.

Amen