Election Fever

Posted on Monday, 3 May 2010, 03:32 p.m.

So you may have noticed that in the UK there is an election on Thursday. I wonder who will be in power on Friday morning. I have to say I think it will take a miracle for it to be Gordon Brown and I feel that it won't be long before he leaves the politics stage altogether. Part of me feels sorry for him, after all Tony Blair got out when the going was good and Brown has lurched from disaster to disaster. I mean if a volcano erupting and preventing anything landing and taking off for six days during the election campaign isn't a sign from above, then I don't know what is.

I will say that I did go out and buy all three of the main parties manifestos. I have looked at them although I can't claim to have digested all of the information contained I did make some observations. The Conservatives looks impressive, it is well bound and hardback, conservative blue and well put together. The sections are easy to find but the writing is fairly dense and small. In contrast the labour book looks and feels cheap, the graphics are multi-coloured and looks like something that a school child might have produced. The sections are well demarcated but the policy seems to lack and overall there seems to be a sense about it that labour has already given up. The liberal democrats looks the most impressive, it is well laid out, a comfortable sized font for reading and what looks like an impressive set of statistics at the back. The manifesto though falls short on policy, perhaps its airy feel is a reflection on the strength of the policies.

I have watched all three of the debates, Clegg has impressed me but in the last one I feel he was running out of steam, he didn't have anything new to add so churned out the same stuff he had in the previous two, while taking potshots at Cameron and Brown and trying to paint them as the bad guys. Brown just looked a little lost, he had no real passion in his words and with bloopers preceding the debates looked like he was finding it hard to fight the campaign on so many different fronts. Cameron improved with each debate but even he had the Blair sheen of sweat. The debates seem to have dominated the campaign and there has been a lot of attention devoted to them.

I fear we will have a hung parliament, I have to admit ignorance and had to find out what this would mean in terms of who would be in overall charge of the country. I even found out what proportional representation meant as I considered if this would be a fairer way of deciding who was in charge of the country. I do think that a hung parliament will be worse for the country than one person in charge, whilst there is something to be said for politicians working together rather than squabbling like children, in some areas decisions need to be made and that means having someone who is capable of taking them without have to beg for votes from the others.

Whatever happens this could prove to be one of the more historic elections in our time, cutbacks and so on are practically guaranteed, but in reality, only time will tell.

Let them have their say

Posted on Monday, 7 September 2009, 01:25 p.m.

Everyone seems to be getting their knickers in a twist at the moment as the BNP are to be allowed a spot on the BBC flagship political debate programme Question Time.
Let me state here, I am not a fan of the BNP in any way shape or form and would be horrified if they ever made significant gains but whether we like it or not people do vote for them and they do hold seats here and at the EU.
We claim to live in a democracy and to have freedom of speech, therefore they must be allowed to put their views across and compete with the other parties on the programme. They will need to stay within the law and should they break them be subject to the same punishment as the ordinary citizen.
Some people seem worried there will be a mass swath of support for them, or that they will say such hideous things that they will tarnish the reputation of the country, frankly the release of Lockerbie bomber Meghari on what increasingly looks like flimisy medical evidence has done that for us already. Letting them have their day may also prove how little meat they have on their political bones, allowing all of us to witness first hand what they have to say, how they put themselves across and indeed if they add any value to a genuine political debate.
All sorts of rubbish gets aired these days and if you really cannot stand it, press the off button!

Lockerbie and other news

Posted on Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 11:33 a.m.

It is hard to believe that now in many ways Westminster has devolved itself of so much power that decisions made by other parts of the UK can tarnish the country as a whole. When Scotland decided to release the man convicted of being an integral part of the Lockerbie bomb which killed 270 people and affected many more it damaged far more than the trust of the people who expected the man to die in prison for the crime. The US is outraged and has protested, the true extent of the damage may only be known when the Barack Obama and Gordon Brown come face to face at the next G20 summit hosted in the US!

What has made matters worse is the welcome received in Libya, true it is a different culture but even so the media coverage of such a return is not going to make foreign relations any better. A royal visit has now been cancelled but isn't this too little too late, after all the royal family are the heads of the UK, and it was the UK that released him, complaining about the welcome home however undiplomatic we feel it is, is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted!

Perhaps more damning is Gordon Browns silence. He has found time to pen a congratulatory letter to Andrew Strauss but where there is no glory to be had, there is no Gordon Brown. Did he have anything to do with the decision? If he didn't why hasn't he moved to distance himself from the decision?

It is true that there was an appeal lodged, a second one! If that had succeeded then it would have been embarrassing for Scotland to have to release him, there is of course no guarantee of this and of course with Megrahi's ill health he may not have survive to see the end of the trial. I for one however do not believe in letting out people convicted of mass murder on compassionate grounds, just because an appeal had been launched does not mean it would have been successful. In prison visits are still allowed and for those that are dying extra concessions can be made, this however should not be extended to releasing criminals from prison. Whilst I agree that people should be allowed to die in dignity with their loved ones around them I have no reason to assume that they are prevented from doing this in prison, it may not be as nice as being in a hospital or a familial home but then killing 270 people removes this privilege.

In other news, A levels are on the up again and to say that today's teenagers do not work hard would be a disservice to them. The fact that many of the teenagers gain the same grade however does devalue their achievements, it is high time we returned to the system where the top 10% of people gained an A and so on. When this happens the grades will be a true reflection of ability and the grades rush will stop, of course the government don't want to do this as it would reflect a fall in the grades. What really needs to happen is that we come clean with our teenagers and reward the a fair grade that means something to universities and so on.

Well done to the England cricket team who managed to win the Ashes this weekend, an entertaining series and good wishes for Andrew Flintoff as he undergoes knee surgery.

Well done as well to Federer who secured his sixteenth masters series title on Sunday ahead of the US open on the 31st.