A Hung Parliament – Are there enough Trees
It’s almost polling day and we are all a little disillusioned or confused… or at least I am… the best quote I have heard this election remains – “The bad thing about a hung parliament is that that there aren’t enough trees”. It’s about the size of it.
In some respects I’ve struggled to follow things – the debates were good if a little lacking on detail, but the press coverage has been good – but also typically English it’s almost as if the press don’t want to ‘over-do-it’ especially the BBC, we’ve seen the news give priority to the Ash Cloud, Gulf Oil spills, Greek riots and other world news and somehow this has meant our three team leaders have been relegated to 3rd position on the news. With the occasional first from Gordon Brown.
If the press are uncommitted to a winner, it’s not because they don’t know who will win, it’s because they don’t want it thrown back at them afterwards.
The crying shame of this is that as a member of the public I am feeling rather undecided based on the fact I don’t know enough any more. I’ll give and example: Vote Match is a service from the Torygraph that helps you decide who to vote for, I have always considered myself a true blue Tory – but I only narrowly was advised that I should vote Tory – it was just a few percentage points away from LidDem and uncomfortably close to recommending Labour! Conclusion – Labour must be doing some of the things I want them to!
Traditionally in times of indecision the best way forward is to tick off the things you don’t want… when buying a house – find its faults, it’s turning out to be the same with politics… not another 5 years of Gordon Brown is an all too common cry.
So with this in mind a good place to look is on the BBC’s Where they Stand: Guide to Party Election Policies, it tells you roughly how the parties compare on issues. The only problem with this negative approach is that very quickly you realise you don’t want any of them to win.
And I think that’s why I keep falling asleep when watching the news!
Well I voted and knew weeks ago which way I was voting. Truth be told until the Iraq War Labour did a lot of good things and most governments do in their first few years. But what we really need is electoral reform. If Cameron wins 60% of the country might not have voted for him..we will just have to see.