''Like me, like me," plead the eyes of the wannabe MPs on the hustings platform, but we are an ungrateful, bitter electorate, trained by the tabloids to confuse venting our spleens for animated discussion. At the hustings in Hampstead, a Socialist Alliance supporter in the audience, in perma-scowl and miniskirt, gave an incredibly tedious rant on the arms trade, barely disguised as a question for the panel. At the end of her diatribe, she smirked: "I asked this question at a hustings last week, and it sparked a very lively debate." She then completely ignored the candidates' answers, preferring instead to treat her pal (and those of us within a three-seat radius) to her views on the race riots.

After three weeks of stalking a variety of parliamentary candidates around their constituencies (for work, not pleasure), I, too, was gripped by the desperate need to tell someone my ideas on how to run the country. Like a lonely old lady who writes 20 letters a week to the local paper complaining about her neighbour's barking dog, I just wanted someone to hear my point of view.

One night, as my mania reached its peak, I typed a brief, crazed work entitled "Make Britain Better". It consisted of four basic suggestions: 1) Save animals; 2) Save humans; 3) Save the planet; and 4) Legalise cannabis (in fact, make its consumption compulsory for violent men such as John Prescott).

The next morning, before meeting Green candidates from south London, I read their party's manifesto. There, in black and white, were most of my ideas. How depressing. Since 1997, I have been trying to cultivate a more mature, worldly and cynical political outlook. Despite many attempts, I have failed to understand the economic arguments that - according to the likes of Charlie Whelan - prove new Labour to be the Robin Hood of redistribution. It turns out that I'm as much a utopian dreamer as I was at the age of 16. Worse, I am now more green than red.

In Brixton, I heaved my bicycle from the back of my car. Jenny, Darren and Storm, the local Green candidates, managed not to tut or raise an eyebrow at my gas-guzzling, fuel-injection xr3i. They all looked very earnest, sitting on their battered old bikes adorned with green ribbons and little banners. On the disgusting, oil-splattered roads of Camberwell, Darren attempted to spell out his party's policies, as HGVs veered perilously close and buses cut us up. "Vote Green," called Jenny to the baseball-cap-wearing driver of a white van. At the lights, he looked at our little group with an expression of both pity and utter contempt. "No way," he said, and sped off shaking his head.

It was going on a walkabout with Glenda Jackson that made me realise why I still can't see new Labour as the People's Party. On our way to a local shelter for OAPs, Jackson explained to her puppy-like American intern why voters are scared of public-private partnerships. With a tightening of her taut shoulders, she gave a tired, yes-the-electorate-are-prats sigh: "They are afraid because a company called Railtrack hasn't done a very good job with the trains, and so people are now afraid of companies taking over services."

"And that's it?" I thought, biting my lip so hard that it was puffy for a week.

In the shelter's dayroom, there was tea and cakes. Most of the retirees were happy that "Linda" had come to visit and were thrilled by the way she sat at their feet and chain-smoked Dunhills. Except for Robert. He pushed a pile of paper at me. "These are my thoughts," he whispered. "Please read them." One item read: "Hairdressers have become extinct in the UK. They have been replaced by hair butchers." Robert's hair was well below his shoulders and his beard touched his chest. Looking at Glenda Jackson holding court on the carpet, he pointed to the item "Anything politically correct is morally repugnant". Change that to "anything political" and, after a month "on the stump", I think I agree.

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