Broken promises in a scramble for power – I know all about it

They'll do whatever we want between now and May 7.

They'll be the perma-smiling, perma-pleasing ying to the electorate's disaffected, disinterested yang until polling day comes.

And then, when the General Election's been and gone, their inner-Jekyll will replace their outer-Hyde Just like last time round. Just like every time round . . .

I've never entered a political race. Rosettes don't suit me and I don't look good in blue, yellow, red or purple.

But I did once win a vote. The feckless youth of Menzies Sixth Form decided I should be their head boy. They gave me a landslide victory against Richard something-or-other, whose chances were scuppered when his involvement in a deviant game unsuitable for broadcast in a family newspaper was revealed in the scurrilous sixth form magazine.

A team of five students were elected to represent their 150 or so peers. Actually, that's not right. Four of us were elected. One was chosen. Kiran, now Dr Patel, was pupil governor. The teachers got that one right. He went on to secure a triple first at Cambridge – a level of qualification that nobody else had even heard of, let alone could aspire to. These days, he runs hospitals for a living. Along the way, he saves lives, launches charities and advises ministers and civil servants while making the world a better place. Y'know, that sort of stuff.

The rest of us were chosen in a dodgy, rigged ballot, where we had to do what Dave, Nick, Ed and Nige will be doing until polling day – make everybody else happy.

I've no idea what promises I made, or even why I was asked to stand. I've made a career out of avoiding promotion, keeping my head down and being the quiet one.

Becoming head boy was distinctly out of character. I'm guessing nobody else wanted it, that year. Or there was an offer of a free pint and I took the bait. Cheers.

In the run-up to the 'election', we didn't have any televised debates, our names weren't plastered on posters, we weren't interviewed by a wannabe Dimbleby and we weren't promised the keys to a really nice house with a big black door. In fact, I'm not quite sure what benefits there were to our elevation.

But elected we were. The results were announced by a man with an awful sniff, Mr Bassett, and we were paraded before our classmates. The head girl was hot. Fabia, a British-Italian student with a long nose and hairy arms was also as pretty as a peach. She was hard as nails too, and routinely beat all of the boys in arm wrestling contests.

The deputy head boy was a bloke called Barry, or Bazza, as he preferred. He cooked sausages in boiling lard, drank nine pints of fizzy lager at each sitting and swore loudly on football terraces.

Emma, the deputy head girl, was a gentler soul with a passion for music, the arts and a chap who worked at the local butcher's shop, despite her vegetarianism. Love is strange like that.

For an inglorious year, we did everything head boys and head girls did. Which was, erm, pretty much nothing. We passed our exams – well, some of us did – and bade one another a fond farewell as we journeyed into adulthood.

I've no idea what became of Fabia, Bazza or Emma. But I like to think they'd be able to teach Dave, Ed and Nick a thing or two when it comes to winning a vote.