Corner Street Societies

It was the election yesterday. It’s the first time that I’ve ever voted. I went ahead and voted Conservative, I don’t mind telling you. They are now the biggest party; however, they did not win enough seats to take a bigger majority in parliament. This means that we have a hung parliament. Now, apparently, this means that nobody is specifically in charge. The Liberal Democrats, however, are the ones who seem to have the most power at the moment. Out of the three main parties, they have the fewest seats, but this means that they could align themselves with either Labour or Conservative and form a government using both manifestos. I’m hoping they decide to and that they decide to do so with the Tories (Conservatives).

There were also a lot of people who got turned away from voting and places that didn’t have enough ballot papers. I think this was absolutely ridiculous and I’m surprised there haven’t been calls for another election to be held to sort the whole thing out.

I’m also glad that the Green Party managed to win a seat down in Brighton. I reckon that, in a few years time, the Green Party will win more and more. I really hope they do.

One of the weirdest things that happened during the release of votes in each constituency was that I saw Jesus. And I bet you think I’ve gone mad now, but I haven’t. I’m deadly serious. I was watching them release the result in David Cameron’s constituency and at first I was only amused by the fact that he was having a hearty discussion with the candidate from the Monster Raving Loony Party in the background… and then I saw him. On the end of the line of candidates there was a guy literally dressed like Jesus. I didn’t know if he was from the Christian Party or what, but it was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. I’ve looked it up, though, and it turns out it was Aaron Barschak. Click that link and you’ll see the bizarre picture that I was faced with. It did amuse me. I don’t think that was his point in dressing in such a way, but it certainly alleviated some of the drudgery of the evening.

In other news, I’ve started writing Book 4, which I decided to call Absolute Power. I’ve written the prologue and I’m in the middle of completing chapter one already. So far, I’m happy to say that it is going really well.

(Lyrics in the title are from Lady by Regina Spektor)

A Political Kerfuffle

Conservatives or Lib Dems? That seems to be pretty much the only two of the three large parties left. My friend, Natalie Powell, put it perhaps more aptly, “The only way Labour could win now is if Gordon was assassinated.”

Basically, I got downstairs to find my dad laughing, today. He told me that Gordon Brown (that’s our current Prime Minister and Labour leader) had shot himself in the foot. Now. my dad is a pretty big Labour supporter, so for him to say that is a huge thing. We argue about politics a lot. He’s one of the reasons why I said I wasn’t going to vote. I get bored of the arguments. To be perfectly honest, this has made me want to vote, though. And I’m pretty sure that vote will be for David Cameron (Conservative leader). Not only will this irritate my dad quite a lot, but I’ve been leaning that way a long time. I don’t care what the Conservatives did in the past and quite frankly I don’t think they did that badly anyway. It’s what they’ll do now that bothers me.

Anyway, to return to the story…

Gordon Brown was doing his campaign thing and got into a discussion with this old woman, Gillian Duffy (a 66 year old widow). If I’m completely honest, she seemed like one of those fairly bossy types that’s used to telling people what to do and getting her own way. Either way, I wouldn’t have described her as the Prime Minister did. He was perfectly kind to her on the street. He answered her questions and even managed to convince her to vote Labour again (she was a lifelong Labour supporter) and then he got into his car. This is where the trouble started for Mr Brown. As much as it also makes me laugh at the fact that it really is a huge fail totally worthy of the ‘ph’ spelling that you normally only give to noobs on forums, it is actually quite serious in the grand scheme of things for Mr Brown.

He forgot that he was wearing his microphone.

If you’re in a political campaign and you forget you’re wearing a microphone: it is not a good thing… especially when you make the remarks that Gordon has made. This a transcript: “That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It’s just ridiculous…” He gets asked what she’d said. “Ugh everything! She’s just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it’s just ridiculous. I don’t know why Sue brought her up towards me.” You don’t have to believe what I’ve written, though, because there’s a youtube video below which shows the moment that it was played back to him on the BBC’s radio show. You can even see him put his head in his hands and I bet you he wanted to groan something along the lines of, “Oh god…”

He called the woman to apologise (this was probably around the time that I was watching an interview with Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, on his thoughts about the matter – he seemed pretty amused but as if he was trying to be serious). She’d said she wouldn’t vote for anybody after hearing his remarks in the car about her. Of course, the apology over the phone didn’t work so he turned up at her house and stayed inside for 45 minutes. My friend commented that the old woman had probably knifed him or similar. At one point I said that he was coming out, then tried to rectify that in case she thought I meant he was gay whilst she asked whether he was alive or in a body bag. As you may realise, this has caused us intense amusement.

Gordon Brown came out of the house smiling and said that he’d apologised, was ‘penitent’, she’d accepted and then he practically ran away. It was quite funny. I’ve personally never seen him move so fast. Shortly afterwards, one of the Labour press officers came outside and told the reporters that Mrs Duffy wanted them off her driveway and that she’d said she wasn’t going to talk to them. The press asked him if she’d accepted Gordon Brown’s apology and the guy said he didn’t know.

Anyway, this is my amusement for the day. Feel free to tell me what your views are.