It’s a sad reflection on democracy that the best summary of the General Election campaign so far was by the person who put up a board that said: “Vote Muppet. You’ll get one anyway.”

But the cheeky wag spoilt it by adding a picture of Kermit the Frog.

Any Muppet will tell you Kermit was the wisest of the bunch, and the ones we end up with in Westminster aren’t often the best. If you ask me, today’s politicians don’t see the bigger picture nearly as clearly as Kermit did.

That’s why the election has degenerated into most parties running their campaigns like supermarkets, trying to tempt us with special offers and one-off deals, or scaremongering about the shop down the road (always a clear sign they have lost faith in their own brand).

Even worse: they assume voters think that way, too. Although that’s perfectly true of some, who can’t see any further than their own nose, the rest of us should be insulted by being asked to vote for people who often have rather less wisdom than we possess ourselves.

As somebody who has reached the same age that councillors and members of parliament generally are, which is middle-aged, I think they should start acting their age.

I’m sure maturity means I have a clearer view of the bigger picture. But do they?

While we become more broad-minded as we get older, politicians seem intent on appealing to the narrow-minded.

The most disappointing thing about the election is that while we are being given a list of uninspiring candidates to choose from, I keep running into people in my own life whom I would gladly vote for, if only they would stand.

And sometimes they also turn up on the news.

Ironically, the ones I would most like to have seen in Downing Street after watching the news last week are relatively young.

They are Mike Houlston and Jess Evans, and they were in the spotlight because their newborn son, Teddy, became the UK’s youngest organ donor when his kidneys were used to save a life.

To be able to see the bigger picture when you have gigantic clouds on your horizon is the stuff members of parliament should be made of, along with other qualities that are not often seen in politicians these days, such as genuine generosity.

How sad that Teddy will never know how heroic his parents are, nor get to exercise the qualities handed down to him through their genes.

Thank God I have no idea how it feels to lose a child, but I do have some insight into the subject because this Thursday will be the sixth anniversary of my older brother receiving a heart transplant.

It was only made possible because of so-called ‘ordinary’ people seeing the bigger picture – ultimately the parents of the donor, who was killed in an accident in Belfast, but also the donor himself who, despite being a young man, had the foresight to sign up to the organ donor register, years ahead of his anticipated death.

My brother, by the way, who is past retirement age, is still fit and well – fitter than me, and probably you too, unless you also get out and play tennis several times a week, like he does.

You don’t need to be Einstein to guess our family’s views about transplants, nor the value of the NHS, which delivered it and which remains the best example in the whole world of seeing the bigger picture.

So use your vote wisely. Or at least as wisely as the choice allows.