So it was that I was wasting time on the internet, and due to change of what I had bookmarked in firefox, I looked at Rupert Read’s blog (Rupert being a friend and co-conspirator of mine in Norwich some years ago). And news there was: namely, that another one time co-conspirator and friend of mine, Adrian Ramsey, is now deputy leader of a national political party. Congratulations Adrian. As a sure sign of up-to-the-minute internet commentry and Adrian’s modesty, Adrian’s blog is currently leading with how reprehensible the Norwich South MP, Charles “Two Pizzas” Clarke. Not content is Mr Clarke to have brought us the Terrorism Act when he was in the home office (making permanent vast encroachments to civil liberties as Irish terrorism was on the decline – law that has been used against anti-war protesters amongst others) and tuition fees for universities when he was Secretary of State for Education (he is supposed to represent a university constituency – though the certain members of the University Branch Labour party are notoriously anti-student, so this is “on message”), he now apparently wants to dismantle the welfare state free at point of use. In the last local elections, the Greens polled more votes than anyone else in Norwich – suggesting Adrian has a non-zero chance of becoming the first Green MP (which I gather he has wanted to be since age 2). Adrian: you have my vote.
All this local politicking made me try to recall when the next general election should be. The last was in 2005, which suggests the next will be in 2010, so I will still be in the US then. So, in the mean time, I must make do with the US elections. This week’s excitement has of course been the appointment of Sarah Palin (trivia: she was reelected Major of Nowhereseville, AK, in 1999 with 909 votes. Adrian Ramsey took 1899 votes when he was reelected as Nelson Ward Councilor). Who knows what this will bring. On the way of all this, I discovered some history I was wholly unaware of: (some) universities used to have their own constituancies, whereby graduates got to elect a university MP as well as a geographic MP. This all ended 60 years ago however.
Politics will relate to policies? Misguided. Buoyed on by all the politicking, I tried to look at what the science policies of some of the parties were. The Greens were all a bit wishey-washy, and lumped it in with culture and sport; I was disappointed. But the Labour, Tories, Lib-Dems… nothing! Hmmm…
