Yay, Leeds Pride today.

Leeds Pride.

More Pride in Leeds.

Clickity click for hilarity and JK Rowling.

The difficulty with British politics at the moment is the fact that the main parties have all moved so far into the centre that we’re suddenly not debating big, clear, easy issues - we’re looking at the minutiae of specific policies. Instead of arguing for or against being part of the EU, for example, the leaders are discussing who Britain should side with within the EU, or whether there should be new treaties, or precisely how stuck in we should get when it comes to certain issues.
I watch the leaders debates and start nodding along with good old Gordon, who then gets cut off by Clegg, who I then realise is making a lot of sense. Then Cameron says something and I want to punch him, and then Nick intervenes and I frown because suddenly I’m not a fan of what he’s getting at. At this point Gordon says something that contradicts what Clegg was saying earlier and I decide I’m siding with Clegg on this one. And then Cameron gets smart-arsey and I get angry again - but then I start listening and actually what he’s saying isn’t Tory bullshit - it’s too specific for that.

My point is simply that things aren’t simple. It’s not as easy as Republican/Democrat - or even Conservative/Labour. For the first time we have to consider the Lib Dems properly. For the first time the Left have to admit to ourselves that Labour aren’t the obvious, snap decision.

And for the first time, I have the chance to put all this into practice and vote.

This needs to be everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJX1fPtHnTw

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/03/labour-indelible-mark-british-culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxCpfkJYYm4

http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/05/04/how-i-will-vote/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservatives-philippa-stroud-gay-cure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1YtLMrPTD0

http://bit.ly/apDStR

Just read or watch one or two of these. And use your vote wisely.

Barring powernaps. For Americans who don’t know (and apparently you don’t, which is pretty bloody worrying), it was election night yesterday in the UK.

If anyone still hasn’t read a fucking newspaper or turned on the television or listened to the radio or been on a news website; the UK has the first hung parliament since 1975. As of right now (10:29am) the seats stand thus:

Conservatives: 291
Labor: 247
Lib Dems: 51
Others: 27

[34 seats still to declare]

Other headline bits of election news - Caroline Lucas has become the first ever Green MP (yay!), Nick Griffin of the BNP was kept out in the constituency of Barking by a Labour candidate, meaning that the British National Party has no seats in the House of Commons (thank fuck).

If Labour and the Lib Dems form a coalition, they will almost certainly have more seats altogether than the Tories, however they will still not have a majority. On the other hand, if they also manage to convince the Plaid Cymru, SNP, and Green MPs to join with them, then they will gain the majority (the SDLP are already under Labour whip - 3 MPs).

Just, y’know, so you know.

Yep, that’s me with my Labour Party membership card.

Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here cementing people’s opinions of me as an overly-opinionated, loony-liberal politics geek.

A new handbook for immigrants will dictate that they must learn the first verse of the national anthem and key historical facts about Britain before they can become citizens. The guide, drawn up by the Home Secretary, will also state that “historically, the UK is a Christian country” with “no place… for extremism and intolerance”.

I have no idea what the first verse of the national anthem is, and yet by virtue of nothing more than my birth I have the unquestioned right to live here? We barely even use our national anthem - and quite rightly, because it’s an absolute dirge. Not to mention the fact that it’s utterly immaterial to actually living in the UK.

Let’s not even go into the other stuff.

Source right about here, and read more about how Theresa May has got rid of the bits about, y’know the Human Rights Act and the details about daily life in the UK, and replaced them with irrelevant crap about how wonderful British people were in the past here.