Taexalia

wild.life

Election Thoughts

Despite the fact that the BBC (which I pay for with my TV Tax called a license fee) seem to have completely forgotten that there is a bi-election in Glenrothes, Fife on Thursday and are instead spending lots of pounds sending reporters all over America following the sorry division that is the race for the White House... Despite the fact that I find myself switching away from any BBC "news" programme because they consider a couple of power hungry men arguing over which one of them is better qualified to rule the world more important than the people in the middle of a violent crisis in DR Congo... Despite the fact that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are in fact a pair of overpaid misogynists who are not "edgy" at all and should have been reined in long before the "prank" (cleverly chosen word dear Beeb!) call scandal (essentially a series of abusive calls that are actually a breach of the law unless you are an unfunny sexist overpaid "star")... and the biggest loser in that entirely stupid episode is (ironically?) a woman. *

Well basically despite the fact that the BBC were recently reprimanded for failing to cover all regions of the UK properly and have decided to address this Londoncentric naughtiness by becoming BBC News America, there is still an important bi-election taking place in the Kingdom of Fife this week.

It is important for many reasons - not least because the people of this Fife constituency are just as relevant as the people of Ohio. Dear BBC.

It's a bi-election to determine who will represent these people in Westminster and it is important because if the SNP win the seat it will demonstrate that Alex Salmond continues to increase support for his version of independence.

It should be noted that this writer supports a referendum on Scottish Independence but does feel that Alex Salmond should not be involved in any way with an independent Scotland - but since I'm not a Glenrothes constituent I don't need to wring my hands over that conundrum this week.

If Alex Salmond's party do return another SNP MP to Westminster, following on from the jaw-dropping victory they saw in Glasgow East in July, then democracy must indeed start to function and Westminster must face the fact that Scotland is, at the very least, entitled to vote on the issue of its future within or without the "Union".

If, on the other hand, Gordon Brown and (New) Labour hold the seat then could we be looking at an early General Election for the whole of the UK? Although I think it would be unwise to call an election in the middle of winter (poorer turn out than usual), I see people shifting around in Westminster that looks like the gathering of the Labour election dream team (Mandelson, Campbell and Blunkett) and I wonder if they are planning to try and win now because they know they will lose if they leave it until 2009 or 2010 when the recession is biting with sharper teeth.

What else could be at play in this bi-election? Could the recent collapse of the Bank of Scotland and subsequent take-over bid from LloydsTSB play a part? I watch Gordon Brown jiggle the anti-competition laws to open the doors for this move and I wonder about the significance of disappearing a national symbol like the Bank of Scotland, and indeed it is the oldest bank in what is now the UK. I wonder about his gruff expulsions on "Britishness" and about how convenient this all seems to be.

I wonder too about how Gordon Brown can seriously claim that this take-over is "good for the UK", whilst trying to secure votes in Fife, when he is really talking about the prospect of around 17,000 Scottish jobs disappearing or relocating south of the border - and I suspect a lots of those employees could be commuters who live in, you guessed it, Fife.

LloydsTSB don't even currently have the money to fund this buy-out and are not only on a fund raising mission, but they are also holding out their hands for a Westminster (taxpayer) funded bailout!

What will this election bring I wonder?

* The woman being Lesley Douglas before anyone assumes I am sticking up for the sexational sun sell-out in a fake blood spattered homage to the far more credible Frank N Furter