Election thoughts

Of course, a British blogger with her finger on the pulse (don’t like throbbing-type pulses myself – too reminiscent of blood and veins… ugh…. - though as a vegetarian I'm fine with the bean-type pulses) would have been writing about the little election that we had on May 6. In case you’re not British and haven’t been watching the international news, we had a choice for Prime Minister between the chap in the job – the Labour Party’s Gordon Brown, a pugnacious-looking Scot (above) -

– and two lookalike posh English boys – Conservative David Cameron (above)

and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg. They all have good hair. (Though Cameron is a Scottish name. And “clegg” is the Scottish word for horse fly.)

I can’t really get myself interested in politics. I’m not proud of this, since I can see that it’s actually very important. So from time to time I pull myself together and read a few worthy articles to firm up my opinions. But my mind wanders, I must confess. The three of them had several television debates, which a serious person would have watched. I did watch the odd bit. But I got distracted by that funny twitchy thing that Gordon Brown does with his mouth and by the fact that the three of them all wore grey suits, white shirts and self-coloured ties and were the same height. I kept being struck by David Cameron's facial resemblance both to Nick Clegg and to an egg. (Or indeed half a bottom, as someone said on the radio. Oh no! I’ve used that word again.)

Scotland is a very small country where everybody knows everybody else or at least his cousin. Gordon Brown’s big brother was a friend of Mr Life's when they were small boys. It’s hard to take one’s husband's friend’s little brother seriously as Prime Minister. And my dad had dealings with GB when he (my dad) was on the University Court and GB was the student Rector. Dad thought GB was very arrogant – though it has to be admitted that Dad viewed himself as being invariably right about everything, so possibly he might not have been the best judge.

Anyway, GB and Labour got defeated, but not by much, as did NC and the Lib Dems, while DC’s Conservatives won but not by enough for an overall majority. So we have a coalition for the first time since the war. The Lib Dems threw in their lot with the Conservatives, but not immediately, so that I went off to work one morning to the news that the Lib Dems were entering negotiations with Labour and by the time I was driving home, the newsreaders were announcing David Cameron as the Conservative Prime Minister with young Clegg as Deputy PM. All very astonishing. Even I was mildly intrigued.

But really I’m much more interested in books, cats and flowers. Very shallow, I know, and if it makes it any better, I am ashamed of myself.