Multiple Dimblebys? Get In!

Well dear readers, I was going to regale you with tales of British sports and an adventure at the Cricket pitch, but I believe that will have to wait. The general election was yesterday, and ya’ll, I have never seen a more complicated and ridiculous train wreck. When I say that this is a hot mess, believe it. The only delightful things about this situation are the broadcasters who are angry and haven’t slept all night, crap animations, the British public laughing at itself, and Joan Collins drunk on a boat (seriously…part of the BBC election coverage involved Joan Collins…more on that later…) Basically, the UK is headed for a hung parliament where no one has a clear majority. At the time of writing, the conservatives have the most seats but not enough to form a minority government. The way things have gone so far is that Brown has not resigned. He made a play to create a coalition with the Lib-Dems. However, Nick Clegg has said that he is waiting for the conservatives to parlay with him first as they have the right to attempt to form a government first. While I hate the conservatives, Clegg is right. 1) a lib-lab coalition still wouldn’t get a majority and 2) a lib-lab coalition would shut out the large group of people who did vote conservative. I don’t agree with their policies, but they have the right to their opinions and to decide who governs them.

This brings me to my next point. If I hear one more British asshole complain about the US electoral system I may punch a baby. In my opinion, the Brits have lost the right to mock us for 2000 and Bush. Quite a few folks were shut out of poling stations and it looks like there is going to be legal action a la Florida 2000 as the election commission didn’t plan for the incredibly high voter turnout and THOUSANDS were denied the right to vote. 600 people were turned away in Chester, there were sit-ins in Manchester and Hackney protesting. (Parenthetically I can’t think of places I would like to screw around with people less….I imagine a Manchester sit in is ROUGH) In Sheffield Hallam (Nick Clegg’s constituency) people stood in line for three hours in the rain only to be turned away. I mean on one hand, yes, the polls close at ten, but if you got there at 7 and you’ve stood in line for three hours you should get your vote…also a few constituencies RAN OUT OF BALLOTS. That’s just simple counting… It was appallingly run. This election was and still is INCREDIBLY close. Those who didn’t vote were actually gypped. Their vote could have made a difference. There is a massive part of me that is snickering…The British press have always been fairly harsh on our electoral system and their handling of the 2000 election was actually quite shocking…(Actually the British handling of ANY American issue is shocking, but I digress) Oh England…a hanging chad isn’t so funny now is it? Especially when it turns out that some constituencies put returning officers in place that CANT COUNT PAPER. Nothing much more to say about that situation except SUCK IT. Democracy is hard kids…welcome to our world… But bureaucratic and organizational issues aside, the whole thing is unbelievably complicated and if I am not mistaken Britain is heading for a MASSIVE change in its electoral system because this shit is bananas. I’m honestly in shock. Somehow there is a system in place where a party gets 36 percent of the vote and over three hundred seats (Conservatives); but a party that gets 22 percent of the vote only gets 56 seats (Lib Dems). Power is given through the number of seats; while the conservatives hold the most seats, they don’t hold a majority of the house of Commons, so technically they are not mandated by the people to run a government (well they are sort of…they can do it, but they would only hold power for around 18 months, and election will be called relatively soon…no one will last 5 years and the kicker is that whoever takes power now will have to take such drastic action to save this country’s economy that NO ONE will vote for them next time round. It’s essentially political suicide…). Then in the background of all of this is the Queen. Basically if it gets bad homegirl gets to step in and do…something…I’m not sure what… It’s a right old mess.

But! It’s not all doom and gloom! What rescues all of this is the BBC coverage of the whole thing. There is something truly beautiful about the way the Brits don’t take themselves too seriously…The BBC set up a lamer British version of CNN’s holodeck complete with some thing called the Swingometer. Now the swingometer is the stuff of legend. It measures the swing between parties in constituencies between elections. It used to be just a basic kind of odometer looking thing with grades of swing and an arrow. Peter Snow would get all worked up about the changes in political thinking and it was awesome. Now in today’s day and age it has become a MASSIVE MOVING HOLOGRAPHIC ARCING WALL! It swishes about the newscasters with wild abandon! It has all the constituencies on it and is incredibly complicated to read and understand! As the returns come in the BBC measures the changes in each constituency and the holodeck goes into full swing! It also has swishing sound effects which are always good. The night is hosted by a man named David Dimbleby, part of the Dimbleby dynasty of British news casting (I’m not kidding, that exists…). Apparently at one point the Dimblebys were on every station so you could have your pick of multiple Dimblebys on British television on election night. On a totally unrelated note I think ‘Multiple Dimblebys’ is the name of my fictional band I may start one day, but that’s neither here nor there. The first return is from Sunderland and I have to say I love the returns. They get all the potential ministers up there like they’re in a bizarre beauty pageant (or in this case an “awkwardlookingbritishperson” off) and read out the results. The beauty of this is that they have to read what party they are. This is great in places where there are the true fringe parties such as the monster raving loony party (google it) or the New Millennium Bean Party. They only get like, one vote apiece, but the returning officer has to read it out like they may become MP one day. In the meantime, to fill time while people were counting and recounting the BBC cut over to its party on a boat full of celebrities. All of them were drunk, all of them talking politics, I’m amazed no one died. The best part of the night was Joan Collins (legend) in sequins drunkenly slurring about how she voted for David Cameron and the Tories because they like families (I think…it wasn’t very clear…she dazzled me with her awesomeness). I gave up fairly early (1am) but after a while it got repetitive. The broadcasters are angry, the populous makes jokes, and no one knows what is going on. Poor Dimbleby didn’t sleep til like, 9am….

The populous do seem to be taking it in their stride. There isn’t much rage, just that quiet angry cynicism. If this happened at home there would be lawsuits already and riots…Here, it appears to be seen as the march of life. A perfect example of this is my boyfriend, who is a very politically minded fellow. We were watching the news he sighed and said “it’s buggered”, switched the telly over to a non news station, made food and drank wine. This appears to be the British way of dealing with this, sort of crap and I can’t hate on it. But in a weird way it’s sad. No one is happy but no one cares enough to force progress. Hopefully the populous will snap out of their cynicism and apathy to actually force change in their country rather than sitting back and taking it. Britain is a great nation; it deserves a great government based on a mandate from the people. I just hope that they can get it together, they deserve it.