Electioneering
Very busy today, as gentle reader will understand, better if I don’t explain it.
But let me add, it isn’t necessary to stay up all night for the British election results (then all the next day too, if you live in Britain). The exit poll has been published, and I find that quite acceptable. Conservatives hold, a little short of a majority; Labour bleed to Nationalists in Scotland, and to UKIP in the North; Liberal Democrats wiped almost to extinction; Greens with maximum two seats. That is about the best I could hope for. …
Well, UKIP sweep Labour into third place would be better, but we must be reasonable in our prayers.
Better, anyway, than the election in Alberta, which we won’t talk about.
(It was a repeat of the Ontario election of 1990, when the Socialists fluked in here, after a similar Premier spent six weeks making “the people” want to hurt him. It hardly meant they had turned Left, as I explained to some excitables in the Wall Street Journal: “It takes more than six weeks to make a Socialist. It takes a whole unhappy childhood.”)
Besides, the best part of any British election is the comments. I recommend those at the Daily Telegraph website especially, but even at the Guardian they’re usually pretty good — and a lesson to Internet trolls everywhere, on how to be rude and obnoxious without sacrificing standards of wit and entertainment. Some of them are even informative, helping to walk the average voter through the procedural subtleties.
Such as: “They can’t give results until the votes are counted.”
My favourite picture so far, not obviously photo-shopped, shows a flyer distributed by some Islamic fanatic group. It sports quite alarming typography (in English), and warns Muslims not to vote for “man-made laws.” This would constitute the sin of shirk, a form of idolatry.
Were I on Team Tory I’d be tempted to print extra copies, to distribute in all the swing ridings.
On second thought, I might actually agree with it. Man-made law is the pits. (This, to my mind, would include Shariah.)
Indeed, Catholics shouldn’t vote, either. (This would further increase the Tory margin.)
Indeed, no one should vote: for as I’ve said all along, it only encourages the bastards. Leave the result to the backwood hicks — the ones who somehow didn’t get the message.