The third installment in my Political Apathy series of posts is here and will follow the same format as its predecessors: a review (merciless slaughtering) of the incumbent government, followed by a quick look at the state of affairs in the constituency of Brighton Pavilion.
One of the hypotheses that I have offered previously is that Gordon Brown is intent on becoming infamous. He knows that he isn’t getting re-elected, indeed might not even make it to the next election as leader of the Labour Party and has decided to guarantee his place in history by demonstrating ever increasing levels of ineptitude. Even ignoring his inability to criticize the illegal exploits of the U.S. in Pakistan (breaking news indicates that another winged deathbot has been dispatched into Pakistan to do what winged deathbots do – fly and kill things) and his willingness to blame everybody but himself (the Chancellor of Britain for most of the previous decade) for the state of the British economy, I still think he is succeeding in his quest. The most poignant evidence of this being the reinstatement of Mandy into the cabinet, a decision which requires no heaping of scorn, mockery and/or sarcasm from me.
Before writing off Mr Brown and Labour as irrelevant, I would just like to rejoice in the glorious moment that occurred on Question Time this week. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was rendered utterly speechless when someone in attendance suggested that Mrs Smith is brilliant evidence of how out of touch the government is and that should their poor performance continue, the electorate would be all to willing to “kick them out”. The fact that Jacqui Smith proved a less popular figure than Janet Street-Porter suffices to prove how poor her performance was.
I don’t really have much to say about the Tories this time around. Dave hasn’t really fallen under my cross-hairs much in recent weeks, other than a fleeting glimpse of some Torie party conference where he said lots without saying anything at all (a skill that is cherished by politicians), whilst being flanked by Mr Osbourne and Mr Hague, who coincidentally looked more like Dave’s personal security than part of the Shadow Cabinet. Kudos to Mayor Johnson though, his decisiveness in getting rid of Sir Ian Blair should be applauded (a decision maker making decisions!) and his speech at the aforementioned conference, containing a combined one-two combo on the Governator and Ken Livingstone, was superb.
Chris Huhne also popped up on my political radar. In my opinion, freedom is paramount to life. It was nice to see Mr Huhne standing up for free speech by pointing out that Dr Fredrick Toben had not committed any crime under British law and that his arrest was not necessary. Now Dr Toben’s anti-Semitic views and denial of the Holocaust make him a douchebag (great word) of monumental proportions, an abhorrent little man, that should he spontaneously combust, I would not extinguish even with a full bladder, but they do not make him a criminal in this country.
What of the local politics scene? Well, no more candidates seem to have been confirmed for this area (still no Lib Dem candidate).
David Bull, the Conservative candidate, has still not done anything worth mentioning. No blog posts or news since October 2007, in this case, no news is not good news. I can’t honestly believe that any professional person would sanction a website and blog that serves only to advertise how stale and static they are.
Nancy Platts has at least made an effort on the blog/news front. The last update was August, which I still find unacceptable, but is certainly better than David Bull. Nancy gets brownie points for supporting the improvement of the Level and recognizing that wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie doesn’t make young people criminals. Still, she gets plenty of Brown points for being associated with the current regime and so is not really an alternative and that is what I am looking for, an alternative, something a bit different.
The logical decision is to vote for Caroline Lucas and the Greens. She cares about the same issues as me, in particular Animal Rights, something that I have never even heard mentioned by any of the other candidates. She isn’t Labour, an obvious but important piece of information. She updates her blog, so I can track her progress. Think about it, I have no evidence to even suggest that David Bull is still wandering the earth, voting for Nancy Platts would mean more Labour (and I don’t think I can stand any more of them), so even if I was using a simple process of elimination, the Green Party would still get my vote!
