I’ve been following the UK elections with more than a mild interest this time around.
Partly it’s because this is the most interesting election in Britain for a long time. Charlie can explain why, if you haven’t been following. I’m enough of an optimist to think there may be a swing away from a corporatist agenda, or towards a more enlightened civil rights platform, if not enough of one to think any such thing might just resonate across the pond and help us shift off Harper.
Partly it’s because a lot of my American friendsNo, not you. You are educated, and a citizen of the world, and you would never be so hopelessly parochial. I mean those other ones. are interested this time, and they keep being surprised (and often patronizingly amused) to find that other countries have very different electoral systems than they do. Actually the reaction to parliamentary democracy seems to commonly be a close parallel to their reactions to cricket; i.e. it’s a very foreign and complicated thing that seems ridiculous on its face, causing you to look with bemusement upon people who get involved in it.Not that I can disagree about that impression of cricket–that’s kind of how I feel about it. But the various foibles of a multi-party system, a parliamentary democracy, etc, are all thing which when commented on I am often forced to point out that “um… we do that too.As do lots of other countries, but Americans think of Canadians and British as less foreign than those other places. The same would probably be true of Australia, if the Simpsons hadn’t cemented a notion of their government system into the American mass consciousness. You know, up here. Your neighbours? Your largest trading partner? Next country along?” Cue the shock and bemusement again.
I’ll be watching closely, with my fingers crossed for a result that will move Britain off the kind of skeevy Big Brother path it’s been on for a while (i.e. enough of a LibDem showing that some civil rights stuff actually happens, and maybe even some electoral reform.)
Oh, and I’ll be watching to see how King Arthur Pendragon does at the polls. I have to agree with Mayall, you’ve got to love “a man in a dress who rides a motorbike and carries a dirty big sword called Excalibur around.” If I were in his riding, I’d probably vote for him, unless strategic anti-Tory voting were a necessity.
