The General Election, and 2006 Longyuanhao

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: 

1. the overweight, insincere Conservative candidate (traditional party of the privileged), who doesn't even live in Oxford (he lives in Westminster);
   
2. the red-faced, sweaty, oiky Labour candidate (traditional party of the underprivileged); and
   
3. 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).

Capturing the mood, this tea sucks.