The English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish are currently in the process of deciding their next Government. The last four weeks have been the usual period of hectic, insincere pledges and mishaps from the various political parties. Perhaps we should be thankful for small mercies - it took less than the 1+ years of the last Governmental election in the USA.
The correct answer, of course, being "anyone but Golden Brown"
As I sit at my desk, my other screen has a BBC web-page updating itself as new results come in, following the voting of yesterday. It was Lei's first General Election, and she took great delight at exercising her right as an Englishwoman (!) to cast her vote.
Our system is such that we vote for whom we would like to represent us as a Member of Parliament (MP). The party with the most MPs wins, and (usually) gets to form the next government. This time, it's more complex, as no party has over 50% of the MPs, and so we might have to be frightfully European. The English don't do consensus very well, and I can't see Belgian Eurocratic politics ever catching on here.
Our local choice was one of three classic party stereotypes:
- the overweight, insincere Conservative candidate (traditional party of the privileged), who doesn't even live in Oxford (he lives in Westminster);
- the red-faced, sweaty, oiky Labour candidate (traditional party of the underprivileged); and
- the skinny, bearded, loose-fitting-suit-wearing Liberal Democrat candidate (traditional party of the terminally spineless).
You couldn't have made it up.
So, I decided to shed some tears over my tong of 2006 Longyuanhao "Yiwu Xiangbing". Unfortunately, it doesn't actually taste very nice, and so exacerbated my woes.
Extra notes/tears may be found here (scroll down).
Extra notes/tears may be found here (scroll down).
Capturing the mood, this tea sucks.
8 comments:
Can't comment about this particular tea (I'm enjoying a 2009 Nada pressing in delight at the UK poll result) but I'm quite sure you wouldn't prefer to swap for a Polish general election.
Even though it hurts to have a coalition for the first time in living memory I don't think UK voters have grounds to complain much about politics. You could have Berlusconi, Haider or one of the Polish muppets instead.
I was looking forward to Clegg announcing in front of Number 10 that he just accepted the Queen's request to form a government.
Clegg reminds me of a used-car salesman. Rather grotty.
I notice that the Liberal Democrats (his party) lost five seats overall. This was despite the furore surrounding the US-style televised debates, in which Clegg's particular brand of empty rhetoric seemed to win the applause of the man-in-the-street. (Although fat-faced Mr. Cameron of the Conservatives was deemed to have "won" the second and third of the three debates, according to media polls.)
Indeed, Oxford booted out one of the long-standing Liberal Democrat MPs, who was a really rather nice clinician and shadow science minister named Dr. Evan Harris. I rather liked him - he was a judge at the Engineering Awards that I attended at Parliament, and he asked some very intelligent questions. He was popular throughout the university. His party, apparently, less so.
Oxford is now represented by a pretty blonde opera-singing Conservative (Nicola Something). I'm rather happy with the outcome!
Cosi fan tutte...
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
Be glad you have three stereotypes to pick from. Our two just aren't cutting it.
Hi Hobbes,
Since restoring the blog roll, you have sent me 68 visitors and became the #4 traffic source.
Thanks!
Maybe you should run and be an MP! :p
Looks like the overweight, insincere and privileged always prevail.
Therefore you have "David Cameron MP" as Prime Minister too bad we dont have another Bush/Cheney as our President so that they can pillage the world.
Dear Brandon,
Glad to see there is some positive outcome!
Dear MarshalN,
Not on your nelly!
Dear Sasi,
I would rank Cameron as being chubby, insincere, and privileged. He's certainly not as porktastic as some of the fine examples that we have in the House of Commons...
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
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