NOW that the local elections have come and gone it's a relief to be able to discuss political topics without falling foul of regulations design to ensure fairness in the media.

If I had been allowed to last week, I would have been tempted to advise people not to vote at all, but as no-one ever listens to me I don't think anyone would have taken much notice.

The last time I talked to a politician about fairness in the media at election time, it was a Government Minister a week before the 1997 General Election.

When I explained that I couldn't put his photograph in the paper the following week because we published on election day, the Minister concerned assured me that he had checked (or did he mean his flunkeys had checked for him?) and discovered it was perfectly legal to do so.

"But is it ethical, Minister?" was my reply.

At this he looked puzzled as if pondering a previously ignored dimension to human activity while I walked away looking as smug as Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

The trouble with our democratic system is that politicians, in order to get elected, have to ditch any moral aspirations they had in the first place.

Some people in Parliament and local government spend a lot of their energy wrestling with their consciences about this difficulty, while others seem to adopt the position that achieving power is a moral end in itself.

I would like to see any election where, as a protest at the motley crew of uninspiring political leaders we are faced with nowadays, no-one at all bothered to vote.

But then, being prone to incurable anarchy, I am almost always out of step with the rest of the population.

When the National Lottery began I hoped and prayed that no-one at all bought a ticket.

Even if only for the first week, it would have been a wonderful antidote to all the media hype and whipping-up of greed that accompanied the National Lottery launch to have all those unsold tickets behind the counters and computer terminals standing idle.

But my dream didn't come true as all the greedy sheep flew down to the newsagent to waste their money as swiftly as athletes off the starting blocks.

Now it is impossible to buy a newspaper on a Saturday without having to queue for hours behind lottery ticket buyers throwing away their money on a fourteen million to one chance.

It is probably a good indication of the general level of unhappiness in modern society that we pounce on anything at all new.

We must be so dissatisfied with what we have already got.

The new shopping centre on the outskirts of my home city of Manchester is a good example of this.

Despite the fact that it contains what we already have millions and millions of already - shops - the M60 motorway was almost closed by all the extra traffic generated on the opening day.

It would have been wonderful to have had no-one at all turn up to hand over their money at the grand opening.

I have heard about an organisation, apparently growing in popularity, which tries to promote the idea of non-consumerism.

Members tried to rent airtime to broadcast TV adverts urging people to 'buy absolutely nothing' for a day which I think is a wonderful idea.

Such a message was deemed 'political' by TV company advisors and the adverts were prevented from being screened.

Isn't it rather remarkable that everyone of us could be transformed instantly into a dangerous political subversive just by refusing to go out and buy anything for a day.

Perhaps redundant MI5 officers could make use of themselves by checking our bank accounts to make sure we are spending enough each month.

Perhaps if the powers that be discover I don't buy lottery tickets, try to spend as little money as possible and have given up voting on the grounds that all politicians are contemptible, I could become as famous as Tony Benn.

l The views expressed in this column are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect that of the newspaper.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.