NO-ONE can escape the fact that election fever is gripping the nation.

High profile politicians are kissing babies and their promises are flying around like a food fight at a teenager’s party.

My problem and perhaps the problem of many as 7th May approaches is, which party actually is capable of mending what still remains, a ‘Broken Britain’?

It is hard to deny that is what we are, despite the massaged statistics paraded before us at this time and the oft repeated mantra, ‘recovery’.

The rise in drug abuse, violent crime, family breakdown, welfare dependency, educational failure, poverty and foodbanks, a pornography epidemic, binge drinking etc etc are all powerful examples and evidence presented daily on our TV news programmes.

Undoubtedly, it is our duty to use our vote wisely on 7th May and as a Christian, I am called to respect and pray for our politicians with the awesome responsibilities they have to shoulder.

But it would be so refreshing to see in those seeking to govern who have the humility and wisdom to admit just how far we have fallen and return to those ‘old paths’ that gave our nation a stability that at present we can only dream of.

We will see who will commit to defend rather than marginalise those whose faith was such a motivating force in the founding of so many organisations of care and compassion through the years.

REV MIKE MELLOR

Minister of Hope Church, Ferndown