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The thought of a computer-styled board game based round a General Electron made me feel that in my case it would prove more of a bored game, but once you've got the hang of the inevitably complicated rules there's actually plenty to be enjoyed.

The aim of each of the 2-4 players is to "do a Maggie" and ruin the country... sorry, run the country by winning a majority of the 100 seats on offer.

The rules are rather daunting, taking up nearly five sides of the cassette insert, and as usual when faced with densely packed instructions I plunged into the game and picked up things as I went. It doesn't always work, but it does here.

You first choose the number of players, and then select the party each is to represent from Conservative, Labour, Liberal and SDP. I'm afraid potential Raving Loonie candidates will have to do a substantial re-write to the program if they want to play.

The board itself consists of 24 outer squares round which the players move in turn after the Spectrum throws the dice, and 100 inner squares representing 20 seats in each of five regions: Scotland, North East, North West, South East and South West. Those 20 seats range from the very safe to the very marginal.

In moving round the board you might land on one of a variety of squares. An arrow indicates a particular region, and landing there effectively gives you two seats in that region, chosen at random. An 'S' gives you a 1% regional swing, with a 75% chance of increasing the swing each time you land on that square. A 'P' asks you to choose your most important policy out of five on offer, the computer having already weighted these.

Although written in Basic, there is a liberal (if you'll pardon the expression) use of PEEKs and POKEs to speed up things, and the responses are generally quick enough to avoid wandering minds. As with any good game, the elements of chance and skill are combined well, and for once the minimal use of sound is welcome, as anyone who's heard a party political broadcast will agree.

If you like politics, then you'll probably enjoy this, but if, like me, the announcement of a General Election has you looking up the first available holiday departures then let me assure you that this game is much more enjoyable.