The closer we get to election time the hotter the political temperature gets.

I predict it will reach boiling point before it’s all over. What is going to be difficult for us in making our own final decisions as to which candidate is deserving of our cross at the ballot box, is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

I am honour bound at this point to declare myself as a local candidate for the upcoming district council elections.

At the urging of their respective political parties those standing for election, many until now largely unseen and unheard of by the electorate, will start to crawl out of the woodwork.

They will be quick to jump on to their soapboxes in a bid to steal a march over their challengers.

This will be either to claim credit for some decision in which their level of interest and input has been relatively minor, or to put the boot in first by finding cause for criticism in a bid to discredit opponents. Elections seem to bring out the worst in us.

What we have been witnessing, coming from all sides, is an increase in spurious claims, complaints and mud slinging.

Such tactics are used to deflect the attention of the accused away from the key issues of the day, enabling their accusers to forge ahead with their own agendas; all very Machiavellian and largely kept out of the public eye.

This petty, nit-picking behaviour should not be allowed to go unnoticed though, because as taxpayers we are paying the cost and the public coffers are not exactly flush with wealth.

Naturally those who choose to step out of line, and who do not abide by the code of conduct we expect from our representatives, need to be brought to heel and appropriate action taken.

However, as is often the case, lengthy and costly investigations reveal that many of these incidents are of such a minor nature that they warrant little or no action at all, although the public view will often be that there can have been no smoke without fire.

Deeds of a more serious nature do attract the attention of a wider audience and can reveal long-term endemic abuse of privilege.

Thankfully such examples are few and far between and in such severe cases few of us would disagree that a prison sentence and public shame may well be the only option.

One area in which local councillors and MPs seem to be able to push the boundaries without crossing the line is in relation to attendance at meetings.

In local government the usual rule is that an elected representative is expected to attend at least one meeting every six months and that failure to do so will mean that they can be asked to stand down.

On looking into the matter there are those who turn up . . . once every six months. In such circumstances they can hardly be said to be effectively representing their communities.

By contrast, there are also those whose attendance is regular but who stay for the briefest amount of time just to have their presence recorded, or who prefer to spend their time doing a crossword, a game of sudoku, or a quick game of Candy Crush perhaps?

The question we must all ask as we prepare to cast our votes is, ‘How suitable is this person to represent my views?’ Unless we do so we do ourselves a disservice by sticking rigidly to traditional party lines.

Linda Piggott-Vijeh, Combe St Nicholas.