I'm a bad person

[ajva]

My disappointment at the unexpectedly poor showing of the LibDems last night is, frankly, massively outweighed by my sheer Puckish delight at the chaos resulting from this particularly numerically "balanced" hung parliament we've got. I managed to stay up until 0520 (sadly missing the Brighton Pavilion declaration, but my first action on waking up about noon was to fire up the iMac to check out what had happened there). And as an election geek, I had a night of rapture, as every single bloody result was completely different. Incredible. And, if you're someone with no clear party allegiance like me, really rather fun. So much fun that my alcohol intake was actually rather moderate, so enchanted was I by what was going on. A bit like when you go to see a film that grabs you so much that you sort of forget about your popcorn.

I bet there are suddenly lots of Conservatives astonished by the fact Clegg is talking to the Tories, so certain were many of them that he was what they might call "loony left" in disguise. And, I have to say - committed democrat (with a small 'd') I am - despite my natural aversion to Conservative politics, I was pleased to see that Clegg stuck with his campaign promise to firstly favour the party that had attracted the most votes/seats. If he'd done anything else, he wouldn't have been worthy of the 'democrat' bit of his party name, in my view.

Comments

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I agree - but sometimes you can't tackle things in order of importance - they must be tackled in order of priority. In order to break the stranglehold of institutional privilege on the national government, and enable progress on the really big issues - international relations, social and fiscal justice - we must first turn the state apparatus into a set of tools fit for the job. For the first time in a generation, that prospect is halfway realistic.

Important is not the same as urgent.