Fyse’s Floating Face

Posted by Fyse on Friday, 6 May 2005

That’s right, it’s another post about the British election! D’you get much coverage over the in the US? There’s practically as much coverage here of your elections as there are of ours, but I somehow doubt that’s reciprocated. Anyway, this will conclude my mercifully brief election commentary, I promise.

I was up until about 1 o’clock on Thursday night, long enough to see the first twenty or so seats declared. The press coverage during the campaign had me convinced (quite correctly) that Labour would win, so there wasn’t enough tension to keep me interested far into the small hours. I was also struck by how pointless such coverage is, with its slick graphics and even slicker pundits, and I dread to think how many hundreds of BBC employees were involved in producing it all. When it comes down to it, what purpose is served by innumerable experts debating the likelihood of a particular outcome when everyone will know for certain just a few hours later? I’m not saying it isn’t compelling viewing much of the time, but a whole load of hot air is produced with no apparent progress. It brought to mind the conversation between Broomfondle, Magic-Thighs and Deep-Thought, if you know what I mean! (Apologies if you don’t, and now think I am a few sandwiches short of a picnic…)

Anyway, Labour are back in with a vastly reduced majority, and at least that means we haven’t woken up to a country governed by the odious Michael Howard. Labour lost loads of seats, the Conservatives gained quite a few, the Liberal Democrats won a handful more, and one poor constituency has been lumbered with the lunatic George Galloway. Winning the seat for the newly founded Respect party, Mr Galloway used his victory speech to accuse all those in a five mile radius of gross corruption, before later reiterating the assertion that his opponent was coated in the blood of a thousand innocents. Quite what the people of Tower Hamlets have let themselves in for remains to be seen, but I can’t see him spending much time addressing the needs of his constituents.