It is election day in the land of my birth and citizenship! Having lived here in the States for a decade I feel somewhat like the Amhed Chalabi of England, blithely dispensing my political wisdom concerning British politics while (I suspect) my finger has long slipped off the pulse. Still, one thing I have learnt in my ten years in the USA is that lack of knowledge is actually a prerequisite for a North American political opinion so I will plunge on regardless on what has always been one of my favorite events on the British calendar.
I have never lived in Tony Blair's England. I feel a little like Trotsky, having worked and slogged in my small way for a Labour victory through my teens and early twenties, only to find myself in exile and ideologically at war with my former political bedfellows when the moment of triumph came. When I left Britain, she was in her 15th year of Tory (mis)rule, mired in political sleaze that makes Tom Delay look like Julie Andrews, economically battered by George Soros and the currency speculators, humiliated in Europe after leaving the Exchange Rate Mechanism, and it rained a lot. Now I just go there on what I call "vacation+" and have a jolly good, nostalgic time while I'm at it. I do notice that most people seems more prosperous and the Michael Caine swagger has returned to the High Street however. And then there was that tricky issue of Iraq....
The long and short of it is that tonight, probably in consultation with my pundit team of my wise younger bruvver Bam Bam* and NY/Norfolk Sage Walter Mondale, I'll try to post live reaction posts here as the pertinent results come in. Just don't ask me for analysis.
Lib Dem leader Charlie "Mine's a Pint" Kennedy proving he has the moves of a young James Brown
(*Because he looked and acted like Bam Bam from the Flintstones as a toddler.)
4 comments:
hey, I'm going to try that blog as you watch Michael Howard sponteaneously combust thing too. bam bam is a cute nickname. I think i prefer my brother's nickname for you, "The slightly less famous brother of Barry Bookham". Ms random Doubt has already accepted the fact that I shall spend this evening locked in a double date with Weasel and the BBC.
Siblings... When I think of your lovely brother Simon I am transported to 1990 and an image of Bernard Sumner in a blue England football shirt.
That Charles kennedy pic is a brilliant example of the colour coding of British politics. It couldn't be more gold. I feel like i'm spiralling into an endless spiral of spiralling general election political junkieness. Ahhhhhhhhhh......
Does this mean I'm going to have to stop singing "The Red Flag" and switch to Coldplay's "Yellow" if I fully transfer my allegiance to the Lib Dems?
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