They Are Still Slashing Away In The Race To Run Knifecrime Island
So how 'bout that British election? Wild, wacky stuff! No party won an overall majority, so the next few of days are going to be an orgy of spin and negotiation. Labour leader Gordon Brown has given a statement indicating that he accepts Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's decision that he will negotiate first with the Conservative party. David Cameron's Tories lead the election and currently hold 303 seats on 36% of the vote to Labour's 257 (29%) and the Lib Dems 57 (23%), with other parties at 27 seats. (These numbers are not fixed, as some constituencies have yet to report.) Participation in the election was high, to the point that some voters were turned away without being able to cast ballots.
What's going to happen? A lot of it is up to Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats actually lost seats despite the brief surge of interest during the debates. Clegg wants electoral reform that would benefit his party by changing a system where the candidate who wins the most votes, no matter how tiny his plurality, takes the seat. Brown has offered a referendum, while Cameron has suggested an all-party committee on reform, but depending on who wants it the most-although given the massive cuts the winner will have to enforce, it seems like you'd be better off letting the other guy handle it-there might be a more concrete commitment to change.
I don't know how many of you watched the coverage on the BBC, but it was as amusing as ever, particularly for those who might not be used to all the gizmos and greenscreens and swingometers and scowls from Jeremy Paxman that are typical of these events. The BBC news sets are like something out of "The Jetsons," and the heroic awake-staying abilities of the variety of commentators and drunken celebrities gives me great hope for the quality of the cocaine over there. I've watched the last four or five of these elections, and I'm always struck how, shiny graphics and futuristic backdrops aside-it's kind of astounding that the same people make "Doctor Who"-it comes down to the most basic rituals of democracy, where the candidates vying to represent a constituency all wind up standing on the same stage in some horrible high school gym to hear the returning officer read their names and vote totals to the crowd before officially declaring a winner. It is simultaneously touching, archaic, and somewhat eccentric-some of the exact characteristics we associate with Britishness. It's a pretty good show. Now we'll see how it ends.
Oh, Ok. I take back what I said on the previous thread. Good summary.
I still maintain the ignorant and bigoted comments buy most Awl readers/ writers are just embarrassing.
Also Dimbleby-Paxman-Matlis; dream team.
*by
I say, one shouldn't take this all too seriously. Some of us are just making a little sport with old Blighty, what.
Like a true Brit, couldn't resist the temptation to throw another 'u' in there.
I heartily disagree that any Brit could consider comments by Americans bigoted towards us.
'Bigoted'? Ha, ha! We could *never* feel so looked down on by Yanks as to feel they were bigoted towards us.
[Ever-growing irrelevance on the world stage notwithstanding.]
Pip pip, cheerio, wot wot; looks like 'e's comin' round on The Awl, innit. Glassings for all!
I am not British; I am Irish.
Many of the comments you decry are, at base, the product of a deep-seated admiration, cloaked in adipose layers of self-aware irony, sometimes even self-loathing.
My friends are right: the U.S, with all of it's good qualities, has somehow managed to exported its worst tendencies to your shores. "Bigoted?" Are you serious?
I beg you, go read some Kingsley Amis.
Bloody iPhone correction! Its !!
Yes; it is bigoted to lump 60 million people all into one stereotype.
"Many of the comments you decry are, at base, the product of a deep-seated admiration, cloaked in adipose layers of self-aware irony, sometimes even self-loathing."
Please, if they were that deliciously complicated I would not have complained.
dontbother, for the last time, we are not interested in your pot of gold.
It's not a stereotype, it's ABSURD. Like in Beckett?
I maybe in Ireland sometime this Summer. Argy-bargy? I'm buying.
May be. Machines!!
On me, if you and I are in the Galway area at the same time.
Great! We can quibble over the tab then. My e-mail is listed on the profile page, if you like. Or you can just keep an eye out for me: I'll be the obese man in shorts and trainers. I'll take my face away from my huge camera just long enough for you to meet your gaze, and use those seconds to loudly mock your currency while looking for the nearest Eddie Rocket's in which to spend it.
The BBC coverage was really fantastic. I love Jeremy Paxman.
I like him best on University Challenge
Sounds like we need to leave them alone in a locked room with broken bottles until we see a stream of blood coming from under the door.
Also – where's my Joe Bruno news??? I used to be able to rely on Balk for all my NY state political news.
I think the U.S. should send Katherine Harris over to make the call! Maybe we can't change history…but the thought of her head catching a few blows and shards? At the hands of our good friends, who supported us all those years afterward, at their own peril?
Yummy.
This was my first go-around watching a British election, and yes the way they're all forced to stand on stage together while the results are announced struck me. Especially the lack of boo's coming from the opposition's supporters. I don't think that particular feature of British elections would end well in America.
Mostly though, I was stuck by the name Ed Balls and the way David Dimbleby pronounced "count."
Dimbleby's expressions of exasperation (I'm thinking specifically during the shot of Gordon Brown's plane sitting on the tarmac, but they were all great) at useless footage is always a delight.
Thanks for the BBC link yesterday! (Of course, I mistakenly left it up on my computer last night and woke to the sound of very proper accents discussing this heated election in a very cold manner. For a moment, I thought I'd been burgled by Brits.)
Can we also talk about how good the new season of Doctor Who is?!?
Crsipin Glover was a rather inspired casting decision as the new Time Lord
That dalek episode was *terrible.* I haven't seen the new crying angels one yet, so hopes remain high. I love the crying angels.
Yes, but it's a fake. This is a fake knife, These aren't real pub glasses and you're not the real Sarah.
I give a qualified thumbs up to the new Weeping Angels episodes (qualified by the fact that Dr Who almost always cripples my critical faculties for the time it's on). UK tv these last weeks, especially with the ability to rewatch every single show online, has been great in general.
I didn't hate the dalek episode as much by the end as I thought I would, though I wish they'd give them a miss for a season. Even with Daleks 2.0, Now with colour!, I'm just tired of them and they don't make me want to hide behind the sofa anymore.
Am loving Amy Pond, almost as good as having Donna back. Though is anyone else missing the old Doctor Who days when they made use of the vast wardrobe in the tardis and dressed to match the locals?
Today's ridiculous british politics link of the day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party
Those guys are my favorite part of the whole spectacle. Watching Alan Hope congratulate Cameron last night made me giggle.
http://topics.pe.com/photo/06vI4Qo1YJ6NI
Is that Boss Hog from The Dukes of Hazzard??
I am vaguely depressed by this, although at least it wasn't an out and out rout. I met Cameron when he came to officially 'open' the new offices of the firm I was working for in Oxford, and he was a nice, pleasant guy who asked the right questions, but he didn't exactly beam Clinton or Obamaesque charisma or star-power; I was rather relieved. At the time Brown was doing a solid, if uninspiring job of helming HMS Brittania and I figured people would be content with that… then the Crisis took hold and that was hung (if unfairly) around his neck (after all, who is it that's BFF with The City, Labour or the Tories?).
Still, I think the overall impression of Cameron is pretty much the same as I had, pleasant but uninspiring; if he really had a bit more of say Clegg's X Factor it probably would have been a rout.
Now if only the young, handsome and charming David Milliband had been ruthless and cold-blooded enough to take down Brown when he had the chance a couple of years back, and I'm sure Labour would have held on.
See, I see the election coverage as having a great deal in common with Dr Who, in that you've got some high-tech effects and presentation grafted onto what is, at heart, a very old-fashioned and rather unique enterprise.
I read that as "and rather antique enterprise." And it made sense.
Does a Conservative-Lib Dem coaltion even make sense? That's like Sauron joing forces with the Keebler Elves.
It does seem a bit unfair to the Tories, since they did, technically, win, but a coalition of the centre-left/mushy-left would seem closer to enacting the overall will of the electorate. Brown should just offer Clegg the job of Prime Minister – sorted.
As far as I can see, it makes no sense whatever. And more than that, won't all the centery-squishy left types who voted LibDem immediately cease doing so once that means guaranteeing a Tory government?
It does for the Tories, obviously, but it's going to be a hard sell for a large chunk of the Lib Dems, who have much more in commom with Labour, and will balk (heh) at compromises on Europe, immigration amnesty, and the Trident nuclear submarine programme, for starters.
I actually find the result kind of refreshing. The British public are telling the political honchos "Meh, not convinced." And they're refusing to be panicked by Cameron's tub-thumping about global crisis and strong leadership – they've voted along the lines of local representation and issues really strongly this time. (I mean, Hazel Blears keeping her seat, for god's sake.)
I'm wondering… Milliband by November?
What's the alternative? Conservatives + Sinn Fien, Plaid Cymru + SNP + DUP?
Not going to happen.
Why not have a runoff?
Actually, it seems likely that there will be another election within 12 months: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7691881/General-Election-2010-Britain-to-go-to-polls-again-within-12-months-experts-say.html