RANT: Rue Britannia

The British election is tomorrow. It's a choice between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Labour, Tories, Lib Dems. And it's the tightest race in years. Or so those over-hyped (rather suspicious?) polls keep telling us.

The Brits are a notoriously dour bunch when it comes to their general elections.After much hype and anticipation most election years, it's all rather a damp squib. Election after election it swings backward and forth between the Labour and Conservative parties, for what has seemed like eons now. Dull, dull, dull.

Blame it on the British electoral system.

The British election system of first-past-the-post is archaic and even potentially undemocratic. Any system which is based on constituency votes and in which the person with the highest votes in the constituency wins (i.e. the first-past-the-post principle) is bound to be a failure, even a farce. How? Very simple. You can have four candidates contest a seat and one of the candidates can still win by getting less than 30% of the vote. In fact, theoretically, you could have one party win 51% of the vote and another party win 49% of the vote but, due to the first-past-the-post principle, the party with 51% of the vote may win 95% of the seats. Theoretically, they could win 100% of the seats! What of the 'losing' party and it's still substantial vote?

It's just silly and, yes, undemocratic.  I know many Brits obsess about keeping their beloved 'local MPs' (fat lot of good it's done them in the recent expenses scandal debacle) but I believe the value of having a 'local MP' is highly overrated. And the system is frankly unrepresentative of the true wishes of the electorate. The European-style proportional representation electoral system (i.e. a party gets 10% of the vote, therefore they obtain 10% of the seats in parliament) is far better. It does indeed have its drawbacks (e.g. who gets on the 'party list' can be controversial and appear undemocratic) but at least it doesn't lead to such skewered results as in the UK system.

And, very importantly, it is fair to say that proportional representation leads to far less 'tactical voting' than occurs in the UK system. Ah yes, the joys of tactical voting. It's as British as scones with cream and jam (once were). After all, why vote for Labour in a seat which is predominantly Conservative and where Labour stands no chance? A Labour supporter in this instance would be forced to either vote Liberal Democrat or some other party or even opt out of voting altogether or suffer having what is triumphantly referred to as a 'wasted vote' should they decide to vote Labour anyway. And this is repeated with all the possible permutations between the parties across the land. Very democratic.

For as long as the Liberal Democrats have been the Liberal Democrats there has been the constant braying that voting Lib Dem would indeed be a 'wasted vote' in many seats. It is almost certainly single-handed biggest reason why the Lib Dems have never seriously challenged the Big Two Dinosaurs of British politics. How could they in such a system? No wonder the Lib Dems have made a referendum on changing the voting system to one of proportional representation one of their biggest platform issues for years now.

The three debates between the three Big Party leaders in the UK these past few weeks were supposed to have 'opened things up'. To a certain extent, they probably did. For one, the leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, came across the best in the first debate, thereby shooting his party up the opinion polls. For another, it showed the beleaguered British voting public just what disheartening choices they have. Poor things. That's modern democracy for you.

Certainly if the choice is (yet again) between Labour and the Tories, then it really is wrist-slitting time. Gordon Brown has been a very unpopular PM and, quite frankly, it's high time that Labour paid the price for having sold out their working class, socialist roots and in some ways becoming more conservative than the Conservatives.

As for the Tories - quite frankly, I puke on them. Conservative is conservative and I simply cannot warm to the party that unleashed the Biggest Bitch of the 20th Century, Maggie Thatcher, and the Grayest Man of the 20th Century, John Major, on all of us.

Talk about YUCK! I have always seen the Conservatives as what is most patronizing, petty and provincial about the British. They are the very worst of the British character - that prissy Little England know-it-all twat who only cares about me, me, me that all we foreigners love to hate. The British have always been capable of so much more and yet, time and time again, they succumb to the self-serving and selfish temptations of the Tory Whore.

David Cameron in all his red-cheeked, bright-eyed and earnest deceptiveness is the very embodiment of the latest incarnation of the Tory party. Hard as he tries to be earnest and caring and sincere he just comes across smug, smug, smug. I can't stand the man. If he becomes the next British Prime Minister, then the British deserve every damn thing they get.

I lived in the UK for five years from 1989-1994, right at the (merciful) end of the Thatcher quasi-dictatorship and the first part of the Major(ly) Gray Years. The country was in a constant pall of economic downturn, the underclass was growing before one's very eyes and Britain was slowly becoming a tatty, nasty little place, losing so much of what I'm sure was its former proud heritage and true sense of self. I felt it whilst living there - I felt the loss of identity, it was that palpable. And we had the Conservatives to thank for that. It was sad.

The Thatcherite demolition of the more equitable, social democratic state to be replaced by a neo-liberal, neo-conservative, monetarist economic framework is what the UK is today. Lost and confounded. Confused about what country it should be. Thank you, Maggie - you gigantic bitch.

David Cameron is just the latest incarnation of that Thatcherite legacy. Of that I have absolutely NO doubt.

The Labour party are a pitiful shadow of their former selves. Yes, Tony Blair allowed them to win a huge landslide victory in 1997 and they have held power until now. But at what a cost to their heritage, to the social democratic ideals of their party and to the leftwing in Britain. They deserve to lose tomorrow.

If I were a British citizen my vote would certainly go to the Liberal Democrats. They are by far the only one of the three parties that speak any of the language and policy beliefs that mean anything to me. They're all for education, taxing the rich, breaking up the banks, having far greater vigilance on the City of London, they're pro-Europe, pro-green and strident about renewable technologies...not perfect, but good enough. I was a Lib Dem supporter when I lived in the UK and now, twenty or more years later, they're still my choice.

Oh, and there's that little matter about proportional representation that they're all about too...

So, my wish for the 2010 UK election?

Let the Tories bloody win, what do I care if they do, but without a majority. Let the big prize be snatched away from them from right under their twitchy lily white noses due to their ridiculous electoral system - fabulous! Hurrah, old chap!

Let the Lib Dems and Labour do well enough that they can still forge a coalition (horror of horrors - a coalition, Britain! How do those Europeans manage it?). It may mean Gordon Brown stays on in power. That hardly makes me happy but one can hope that the Lib Dems will prove a handful as coalition partners.

For what it's worth, ANYTHING is better than having David Cameron and his bunch of neo-conservatives running that country next week. It will not bode well for the UK, it will not bode well for Europe and, given the clout that the City of London still has in the world economy, it will not bode well for the rest of us.

Rue Britannia or Rule Britannia? Tomorrow the British voters decide. Let us hope they decide with more true heart and with less tactical thinking.

Do you get my point?