Sorry about the silence again. I’ve got two weeks worth of links stored up, which hopefully I’ll post over the weekend. In the meantime, I’ve started on the edits for Tease, subbed Wolf-Spider to Pseudopod, and exercised my democratic rights. At least I was able to, unlike a lot of people in this country.

These are the voyages of the star trek enterprise musings of an interested but not-politically-knowledgable person…

We have a kind of two-and-a-half party state in the UK, with the Conservatives on the Centre-Right, Labour in the Centre, and the Lib Dems on the Centre-Left (or, if you’re American, Conservatives on the Left, Labour on the Left Left, and Lib Dems looking distinctly pink). Further left you have the socialist parties and the Greens, further right you have UKIP and the BNP. And yesterday, we had an election.

I’m disappointed the Lib Dems didn’t do better, and I don’t really want to live the next five years under a Conservative government, but I’m trying not to be a sore loser. Not sure how a LibCon pact would work, consdiering the massive differences between the parties, but as a friend has said if the Lib Dems can manage it for a year or so there’s a good chance another election will be called to try and get a clearer majority, and if they successfully talk the Conservatives around on the issue of proportional representation then they’d actually have a chance. It’s unlikely the Conservatives will go for it though, unless the Lib Dems help them push something serious through in return.

I’m still predominantly in favour of proportional representation, though it would have given the BNP 13 seats, rather than none (if you’re not from the UK, they’re the racist party. No, really – they want everyone who’s not white out of the country). It would be a bit harsh on the regional parties, like the SNP and Plaid Cymru, but when you consider that as it stands the Lib Dems got more votes but lost five seats compared with last time you have to concede the current system is pretty screwed up.

We deserve another election, though, after so many people were unable to vote in that one. No party would dare let that happen under proportional representation – it has too much potential to skew the vote. I’m glad people have the right to sue under the Geneva Convention. I would, if I’d been in that situation. Luckily I voted before work.

Still, I am interested to see how a hung parliament turns out. It’s bad for the market, but it’s something most of the other European countries have managed at some time or another without collapsing. It’s… fairer.