#oneaday Day 152: Two things

Two things.

1. America, you fucked it up. After I specifically told you not to.

2. I did the thing. I hope reading it brings you some distraction.

I’m not sure what else there is to say, really, aside from that I really feel for my poor pals in the States right now. Knowing that a vile shitstain of a human being is going to be sitting in the big chair for one of the most powerful nations on Earth doesn’t feel good from here, let alone what it must feel like for actual residents of that country.

And it’s for the second time. It wasn’t a fluke accident, this has happened for a second time.

I think it’s long past time that the supposedly “civilised” world admits that we have a problem. A big one.

We’re regressing. You and I may not be, but collectively, as a society, we are regressing. After a lot of good work to improve tolerance and inclusion for those who aren’t straight cis white men, it feels like in the last few years we’ve taken more steps backward than we have done forwards. And Trump’s election to the White House would just seem to confirm that.

Because, like it or not, the fact he achieved this means that there is a significant portion of people who think that he “Has a Point” about at least some of the vile, odious rhetoric he has been spouting in the run-up to this election. It’s almost certainly the same people who think that projects having women or people who aren’t white in a leading role is a sign of “wokeness”.

Those people, for whatever reason, are furious about the world. And they see intolerance, abusiveness and voting for someone as transparently awful as Trump as a means of assuaging that anger. They hope he deports “all the immigrants”. They hope he takes rights away from people who have had to fight to be recognised. They hope he sends things spiralling backwards into attitudes even the mid-20th century would be ashamed to express.

And, honestly, sitting here observing from a distance, it’s frightening. It’s horrible to know we live in a world where such intolerance still exists; the appalling treatment of minority groups is supposed to be something we read about in history books, then think all smugly about how much better we are than “back then”.

But we’re not. We may not be putting black people on their own buses or denying women the vote, but the intolerance the supposedly “civilised” world is exhibiting right now — and the fact it goes unchallenged — is still painful to witness, and I’m not the one experiencing that intolerance first-hand. It’s not enough to “be a good person”, to “be the change you want to see in the world”, because no-one gives a shit.

What is it that one can do, though? It’s honestly hard to say at this point. But the world we live in today is a frightening one. And I’m afraid I have few words of comfort to share for those who are most likely to end up suffering because of all this.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 150: Don’t fuck it up

Dear America,

We, the Rest of the World, are given to understand that you are holding an election for your next president tomorrow. To all of us, looking from the outside, the choice appears to be between a bright orange cunt who has done more than enough things to be locked up in prison for a very long time, and a likable woman who, along with her running mate, has not only done a surprising amount to reach out to “the young”, typically some of the most apathetic when it comes to politics, but has also relentlessly — and completely correctly — highlighted her opponent’s shortcomings.

This would, to us, appear to be an easy choice. We know that both candidates have things that you’re not altogether happy about for one reason or another. We know that for certain groups of you living in the States, either choice is a difficult or uncomfortable one. But come on now. Seriously. If you vote for the orange cunt, you are an idiot. There is no other way to put it. You are a fucking idiot.

I’m not going to go off on one like some people do online and start talking about “Nazis” and “fascism”, but the orange cunt is a cunt. The orange cunt is a criminal. The orange cunt has already proven that he makes a hash of things if given even the slightest hint of power, so how it even got to a situation where the choice is between the orange cunt and literally anyone else is completely beyond the ken of those of us observing from the outside. This race should not be happening. The orange cunt should not even be in consideration for the big chair in one of the most powerful nations on the planet.

And yet, somehow, he is. Which is what worries me. Because if the orange cunt can get into a position where he’s an election away from sitting in that big chair — for the second time, let’s not forget — it concerns me that he might actually win. And, besides that making your entire democratic process a laughingstock — not that ours is much better, mind — it looks like that is going to be outright dangerous for a lot of people.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that the orange cunt losing will be dangerous, too. We’ve seen on multiple occasions that he doesn’t take losing very well at all. We’re just all consoling ourselves with the fact that if he does lose, there is hopefully enough out there now to lock him away where he can do no further harm. Although we very much doubt that this will actually happen. He’s rich, you see, and rich people don’t go to jail. “If the penalty for a crime is a fine, that law only exists for the lower classes,” and all that.

So come on, America. There is very obviously only one sensible choice here, but we, collectively, don’t quite have 100% faith that you’ll make that sensible choice as a nation. You have voted the orange cunt into office once before, after all.

We’d very much like to be wrong. And so, in the words of Ru Paul: good luck, and don’t fuck it up.

#oneaday Day 144: Are we fucked?

With each passing day, I feel like it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the feeling that we, the humans, are completely and utterly fucked.

And I mean this in a variety of ways. For one, it’s impossible to ignore the wilful ignorance “big tech” is demonstrating in the current “AI” gold rush. After years of getting things like carbon emissions and sustainable energy production into a good place — likely far too late, but still, the effort was happening — it seems all the big players in the tech space have just gone “haha! Fuck that, we’ve got a new toy, and bollocks to the frankly unnecessary amount of energy it consumes to power it”.

And this is about the third or fourth energy-inefficient tech gold rush at this point, after cryptocurrency and NFTs. The one thing those things and “AI” have in common is that they’re hawked by people who are completely unable to explain how their supposed benefits outweigh the absurd cost in resources required to use them. At worst, they’re used as outright scams.

AI is even worse at this point. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen several adverts for “AI”. Not an AI product, not a revolutionary and groundbreaking use case for AI… just adverts for “we are a tech company and we’re doing… something… with AI because every other fucker is”. It is absolutely telling that not one of these adverts has been able to depict AI doing anything remotely useful, and that none of them even attempt to explain why AI is a good thing. Because, as most people who have been paying attention will know at this point, there is no product.

Seriously. There is no compelling use case for AI that isn’t already covered in a more energy-efficient format by existing tech.

Want to find information? Search engines exist, both for the whole Web and within a single site.

Want to write code? Well, you’d better learn, because ChatGPT is going to spit out bullshit that is full of errors that you won’t know how to spot without knowing how to code.

Need an image? There are billions of images online, many of which are royalty free or suitable for use via fair use provisions. There are free art packages available. And there are lots of artists who will draw whatever the hell you want — yes, even that — if you give them some money.

Can’t write an email? Bullshit you can’t. If you can write a ChatGPT prompt you can write a fucking email. Stop being a lazy cunt.

Need AI to “summarise” something for you? Just read the fucking thing, it’s not hard, and as a species we’ve spent several thousand years mastering that basic skill.

So that’s a concern, both for the environmental impact and for how it will affect the job market. I’m also rather concerned about how medicine seems to be super-keen to use AI rather than, you know, human doctors. I’m sure that’s going to be a fun few lawsuits in the near future.

And outside of all this nonsense, we have the current state of world politics, particularly the US. I have friends in the States who are — quite rightly, I feel — legitimately terrified about what the upcoming election will result in. And while I thought people were overreacting somewhat back in 2016 when this situation last presented itself, having seen how utterly deranged Trump and his most obsequious sycophants are behaving in the run-up to this election… yeah. I get it.

So the inevitable conclusion to all this is to find myself sitting alone in a hotel room asking myself “are we fucked?” Cause I think we might be, y’know. I think we might be.

2486: One and Only Post About America’s New President

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America elected Donald Trump, noted toupee wearer and generally unpleasant person, as their President. This is either terrifying or highly amusing — or perhaps a combination of both.

I have no love for Donald Trump. He’s shown himself repeatedly in both social and popular media to be a bigoted twat who frequently speaks without thinking, promising entirely unreasonable things and making objectionable comments about all manner of groups of people. He is not, in short, who I would have voted for as President, were I an American.

I feel that it’s worth contemplating exactly why so many people voted Trump, though, much as it was also worth contemplating why so many people voted Brexit, and why so many people voted for the Conservatives to govern the UK after seemingly widespread dissatisfaction with their previous work and particularly their former leader David Cameron.

This article from The Guardian offers an explanation.

Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station. Here’s what it consisted of:

Hillary was virtually without flaws. She was a peerless leader clad in saintly white, a super-lawyer, a caring benefactor of women and children, a warrior for social justice.

Her scandals weren’t real.

The economy was doing well / America was already great.

Working-class people weren’t supporting Trump.

And if they were, it was only because they were botched humans. Racism was the only conceivable reason for lining up with the Republican candidate.

How did the journalists’ crusade fail? The fourth estate came together in an unprecedented professional consensus. They chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them. They transformed opinion writing into a vehicle for high moral boasting. What could possibly have gone wrong with such an approach?

In short, instead of allowing people to make their own mind up and encouraging them to think critically about both candidates — or the pros and cons of Brexit vs Remain, since a very similar situation unfolded with that vote — the mainstream media attempted to rely on its power over society by clearly marking one option as the “wrong” one. Trump is evil because x,y,z, Brexit is bad because a,b,c. It didn’t stop there, though. It then repeatedly listed all the reasons why you would be a terrible person for voting for the “wrong” option along with all the reasons you would be an absolute paragon of virtue, ally to the oppressed and generally wonderful human being if you voted for the “correct” option.

It may be that if you critically analysed the positions of both options, you still thought that Hillary was the right choice, and if so, great. If it had been left at that, she could have probably won. But people need to reach that conclusion naturally rather than being shepherded away by barbed wire, locked gates and signs saying “DANGER! TRUMP AHEAD”. People, particularly in the age of the Internet, are curious beasts, and if you tell them they can’t or shouldn’t have something, that will only make it more attractive to a particular type of individual. “Why is the media so absolutely adamant that I shouldn’t choose this option?” they’ll think. “What are they trying to hide?”

We are in an age of social media, where buzz and influence can be created artificially to a certain extent, but more commonly it is an organic, natural process that occurs seemingly randomly and at the bitter, twisted and above all unpredictable whims of the great Internet Gods. In this age, where everyone likes to feel like Their Opinion Matters — and where we’re repeatedly told that Our Opinion Matters, even when it clearly doesn’t — people really don’t like to be told what to think. People really don’t like to be talked down to or told that a conclusion they may or may not have reached themselves is “wrong”, or that there is only one “correct” option, regardless of whether or not you personally actually think it’s right for you if you take a closer look at it.

This kind of attitude — a “journalists’ crusade”, as Frank puts it in his Guardian piece — leads to people feeling bitterness and resentment towards the media. We’re already in a place where general trust in the media is at something of a low, so it wouldn’t have taken much to push people into “spiteful” mode, where they deliberately go against whatever the media is telling them to do simply to send a very clear message: we want to make up our own minds, and fuck you for trying to tell us we’re awful people for doing so. There is, of course, a certain irony in doing this causing everyone who feels that way to vote the same way, but when you only really have two practical options, there are limits to how effectively you can protest.

“[Hillary Clinton] was exactly the wrong candidate for this angry, populist moment,” writes Frank. “An insider when the country was screaming for an outsider. A technocrat who offered fine-tuning when the country wanted to take a sledgehammer to the machine.”

Well, I’d say that sledgehammer has well and truly been taken to that machine, and a clear message has been sent. I’m not excusing the result or saying that it was the “right one”, just saying what has seemingly happened from an outsider’s perspective. It is pretty much exactly the same reason there is so much resistance to perceived “political correctness” — people do not like to be told how to think or feel.

It remains to be seen whether or not this election result is ultimately “good” or “bad” for America — and the world — as a whole, but as a friend on Facebook noted, “I look forward to four years of people learning how little power the President has.”

1585: Taxing Polls

Did you vote today? I did, and so did Andie. I don’t actually really care all that much whether or not you did — I’m guessing you didn’t if you’re reading this from outside the UK — but it seems to be “the done thing” to ask today.

For those reading from outside the UK, it was a combination of local elections and European elections today. I don’t follow politics with any great interest, so I’m not really 100% sure what both of these elections will decide in the long term, but I do know that a significant proportion of people on the Internet were absolutely adamant that we must not vote for UKIP.

UKIP, for the uninitiated, are a party led by a sour-faced trout called Nigel Farage who are strongly in favour of, among other things, the UK’s independence from the rest of Europe. They’ve also garnered something of a reputation in recent weeks in particular for being possibly a little bit racist, maybe. Not quite as flagrantly, unashamedly racist as the British National Party (BNP), mind, but still enough to give people pause, especially if they are a member of an ethnic minority group or an immigrant themselves.

Before we go any further, I’ll note up front that I didn’t vote UKIP. I disagree with what I know of their policies, I don’t like racist attitudes and I think Nigel Farage is a twat. This site also suggested that I fundamentally disagreed with UKIP on all but three of the thirty different policies and opinions it tested, and had the greatest affinity with the Green Party, most closely followed by the Lib Dems, then after a bit of a gap, Labour and the Conservatives. I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings before taking the test, so I voted Green today. They’re one of those parties that are pretty unlikely to ever have any real power, but the way democracy is supposed to work is through you voting for the party that most closely aligns with your beliefs, right?

Anyway. Now I’ve said that, I feel I can say that the run-up to this election has been absolutely insufferable largely due to the number of smug people pointing out with great delight how they’re not going to be voting for UKIP. I saw the same “hilarious” Twitter messages that “Farage hates” being retweeted time and time again; the same Stewart Lee speech shared over and over again; the same people congratulating one another on how awesomely politically switched-on they were.

Trouble is, the stated (or implied) intent in what these people were doing — to convince other people that voting UKIP would be a bad idea — was somewhat flawed. When it comes to political views, people are pretty ill-informed (I’m a fine example) and yet pretty stubborn when it comes to which party they choose to attach themselves to. (I am less of a fine example of this latter aspect.) This means that when you proudly declare how awful UKIP are and how you wouldn’t possibly vote for them ever, and how nobody else should vote for them ever, you’re not changing anyone’s mind. If anything, all you’re doing is reinforcing your own beliefs — and those of people you know already agree with you — and causing those people who do claim to support UKIP to dig their heels in and be more determined to vote for this party you detest and despise. Meanwhile, you end up irritating the fuck out of the people who don’t feel particularly strongly one way or the other and who wish the Internet would go back to arguing about whether 1080p and 60 frames per second really matters.

I suppose I can’t really fault people for at least appearing to stand up for what they believe in — particularly in these increasingly apathetic times. I simply don’t feel that the way people have chosen to express themselves in this instance — as with so many topics that people get passionate about on the Internet — has been particularly helpful or productive.

I guess we’ll find out when we hear the results of the elections, won’t we?

#oneaday Day 569: It’s All Kicking Off

“It’s all kicking off.” A phrase which now represents the recent riots that have been taking place around the UK.

I’m not going to use this as a means of making some sort of political comment on the whole thing, because as a normal human being and a law-abiding citizen, frankly I don’t care on the political aspect of it — if there even is one. What I do care about is that people in this country have the capacity to go completely batshit mental and smash the shit out of absolutely everything, then set fire to it just to make sure it’s good and properly destroyed.

A piece on the BBC earlier summed up pretty much what I think about the whole thing — a growing culture of consumerism, materialism and a sense of misplaced entitlement among young people is highly likely to blame. Evidence of it is everywhere, and as an ex-teacher I frequently came face to face with the kind of behaviour which, left unchecked, could (and did) escalate into something altogether more sinister.

Parents do need to take more responsibility for their children and be able to tell them “no” rather than pandering to their whims. In the first school I taught in, the most unpleasant child in the class would never turn up to his detentions because, I quote, “Mum says I don’t have to do detentions”. In the face of such defiance from not only the child but the parents too, what exactly is the educational system expected to do in order to instil a sense of “good citizenship” in these little scruttocks?

It’s not all kids, of course, but any time an event like this comes along — particularly one of this magnitude — it’s easy to quickly decry all children and teenagers as “feral” and start advocating increasingly Draconian societal measures. That’s possibly not the answer, as it would likely lead to even greater social unrest — unrest which the previously “nice” kids might feel compelled to join in on.

What is a problem is the gang culture that is growing and spreading in our towns. When I worked in retail in Southampton, we used to have an almost constant gang presence in the store thanks to the fact that we offered, in effect, free Internet access. Hordes of youths in hoodies, ill-fitting trousers tucked into socks and several tons of cheap “gold” jewellery frequently spent the best part of a day in the store, intimidating staff and customers alike, until we got to a stage where enough was enough and we had to start taking tougher action.

The presence of these individuals was enough to be intimidating, but then you looked at what they were doing online. Most of them made use of the social networking site “Bebo” at the time, and most of them were on there “repping” whatever gang they happened to come from around the city. In some ways, it was sort of hilariously pathetic, as these kids boasted about how hard they were, how excellent their rapping was (spoiler: it wasn’t very excellent) and how badly they were going to “murk” their rivals from the next postcode over. But on the other hand, the obsession with guns, violence and materialism coupled with severely short tempers was somewhat sinister — and it made running across these individuals outside a disturbing, unpleasant experience. And they knew it.

The scariest thing about these riots is seeing that the people that I fear are capable of scary shit. Having your fears justified only makes them more scary.

At the time of writing, at least, things do seem to be calming down a bit. I hope this momentary madness passes and the devastated communities affected by the chaos can regroup, rebuild and move on. And that the scumbags responsible are brought to swift and humiliating justice.

#oneaday, Day 242: Original and Best

I p-p-picked up a Penguin earlier (note to Americans: this is a chocolate biscuit, not an actual penguin nor a low-cost paperback reprint of a classic novel) and was dismayed to see a word on the wrapper that seems to be becoming more and more common on the foodstuffs of my childhood: “Original”.

To me, the word “Original” written on something implies “Hey! You used to like this. But very soon, we’re going to do something that utterly destroys your memories of it, like adding fifteen new flavours completely unnecessarily!” The word “Original” implies that there are soon to be “non-Original” varieties. While I certainly wouldn’t be averse to the idea of a chocolate mint or chocolate orange Penguin bar, it does seem somewhat unnecessary given that a number of other chocolate biscuit maufacturers have the whole “flavoured chocolate biscuit” thing pretty well stitched up. Similarly, Penguin have had the whole “chocolate-coated chocolate biscuit with chocolate cream filling” thing working for them for many years now. So why the change?

The ultimate sacrilege of this type I’ve seen is Rice Krispies. Rice Krispies are Rice Krispies. You can customise them with milk and sugar and those interminably homosexual mascots they have, but they’re still Rice Krispies.

Not any more! They’re “Rice Krispies: Original”, which again implies that there are soon to be “non-Original” Rice Krispies invading our cereal cupboards. The thing is, non-Original Rice Krispies already exist. They’re called Ricicles (sugary Rice Krispies) and Coco Pops (chocolatey Rice Krispies). So are we going to lose these established, recognisable and, to some (who really enjoy cereal, like, a bit too much), beloved brands? Perhaps.

Why does this happen, though? Perhaps it’s part of the growing culture we have where Choice is Good. Yes, Choice is Good. But there are some things where we don’t really need quite so much of it. Breakfast cereals and chocolate biscuits being two such examples. Mobile phone packages and varieties of bottled water are two more. Electricity tariffs. Types of coffee. Whether I want chillisaucesalad on my kebab. Too much pressure!

The upshot of all this is that people begin expecting choice in everything they do, even when it’s completely inappropriate to do so. Look at education; both the Government and parents seem to expect teachers to be able to deliver a personalised, customised experience for every child. There’s even an official “programme” for it: Every Child Matters. And yes, they do. But there are 30 children in an average classroom. And one teacher. Perhaps one or two assistants. Have you ever tried to get thirty different people, some of whom already have attention-deficit disorders, to do a selection of different things? It’s immensely difficult and nigh on impossible. But it’s expected. Because Choice is Good. Personalisation is Good. People should be able to have the experiences they want, when they want them.

So, with that in mind, balls to non-Original Penguins. They’re destroying our education system.

Possibly.

#oneaday, Day 101: You’re A Bigoted Nazi And I Hate You, You Twat

Election news, and this happened today:

Yes, for those of you who haven’t been on the Internet at all today, Gordon Brown made a somewhat embarrassing gaffe when he inadvertently left his microphone on after a televised interview with a voter from Rochdale. Voter in question, one Gillian Duffy, was somewhat outspoken about her opinions, having been a Labour voter all her life, and raised a concern over the number of Eastern European immigrants coming into the country. It wasn’t quite a full-on “they’re coming over here, stealing our jobs” Daily Mail rant, but Gordon clearly thought it could potentially get into that sort of territory, looking visibly uncomfortable as he attempted to reassure her.

Then, when leaving the scene, his microphone was left switched on, allowing the general public to hear him pronounce the meeting as a “disaster” to his aides. He noted that they “should never have put [him] with that woman” and demanded to know “whose idea was that?”

When questioned on what she said that offended him so, his response was “Oh, everything… she’s just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour, I mean, it’s ridiculous.”

Now let’s give Gordon a bit of credit here. He’s showing himself to be a human. This is something of a rarity. Who hasn’t had a good rant at colleagues after dealing with a particularly difficult customer? The difference here, of course, is that the rest of us don’t have radio microphones. Nor are we under constant scrutiny from the press and public alike. The most we have to worry about is whether or not our boss is following us on Twitter. (If they are, block them now. Seriously. And don’t even think about adding them on Facebook.)

Gordon is under this sort of scrutiny. He was under this sort of scrutiny even when he wasn’t on the election campaign trail. Which means that within moments of it happening, news was all over the Internet. It’s been said a number of times before that the fact this is the first election where social networking is going to be a big deal. This incident, and the speed with which it spread from Twitter to Facebook and back again many times over, just goes to show how much power the Internet is going to have over the end result of the election. Couple this with the various campaigns in support of underdog Nick Clegg of the LibDems on Facebook and things aren’t looking too rosy for our PM.

The worrying thing about this situation is that it’s allowing parties with more extreme views such as the BNP to gain more support. Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, claimed in his controversial (and Marmite-smeared) election broadcast that the BNP is the “fastest growing party in Britain”. This may well be an exaggeration (and probably is) but the big issue for a lot of people at this election is immigration. A lot of people feel rather strongly about it, to say the least. A lot of people are becoming more outspoken about their views. And a lot of people are starting to sympathise with the BNP’s views. When they see damning evidence that the “main” parties don’t appear to be paying attention to the things that matter to them, that’s when they start to look elsewhere. And hearing your views dismissed as being “bigoted” by the Prime Minister certainly isn’t going to make you feel like voting for a party you’ve been loyal to your whole life.

I’m no fan of the Daily Mail “Britain is FULL!” line and I don’t particularly agree with Gillian Duffy’s statements. But it’s her right as a voter to share those views with the prospective candidates and question them on what their plans to do something about them are. It’s part of being an informed voter. This election is actually interesting people for once, so voters have every right to make an informed choice. What Gordon should have done – and in fact, what Gordon has said he was going to do – was engage with the woman’s opinions and open a debate. Part of being a politician is dealing with people who hold differing viewpoints to you. These viewpoints might be a little bit different, or they might be completely diametrically opposed to yours. The masters of their art can engage with these viewpoints and disagree with them in such a way which doesn’t leave the other person feeling like a complete dick. I can only imagine how mortified Gillian Duffy must have felt when she discovered what had been said about her.

Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine. Ever-resourceful and keen to potentially get a shot of someone either getting angry or starting crying, reporters on the scene decided to share the PM’s gaffe with Duffy. This was her reaction:

Needless to say, the PM has lost the respect of one voter. Plus the millions of people who have retweeted and shared these videos all day. Plus the millions of people who don’t “do” social networking but have watched over the shoulders of partners and spouses. Plus anyone who watched the news today.

Brown’s defensiveness and unwillingness to engage with someone who disagreed with his views may well have cost him dear. Whatever you may think of Duffy’s comments on the subject of immigration, they’re pretty mild when compared with some of the things that BNP supporters come out with. Was calling her “bigoted” really necessary?

#oneaday, Day 95: Round 2! Fight!

The second round of the Leaders’ Debate happened tonight on Sky News. This means we had an annoying news ticker running across the bottom of the screen all the way through, accompanied by occasional references to make us wish “God, I wish I was watching this in HD”. There is no need for HD in a Leaders’ Debate. Unless you really like watching people sweat.

It was what happened afterwards that was quite interesting, though. Sky immediately pronounced David Cameron the “winner” of the debate, according to the YouGov/Sun poll. Now, I’m immediately suspicious about this as the Sun is hardly the most objective point of reference when it comes to politics, particularly around election time. But my suspicions were further confirmed when, looking at various other polls on different websites, results varied enormously. One site put Nick Clegg at a 65% majority. Twitter was overwhelmingly pro-LibDem once again. Another site put the three potential leaders much closer to one another.

Conclusions to draw from this, then? Polls are utterly meaningless if there’s more than one asking the same question, because you’re going to get vastly different answers according to the audience. One could even question whether the election itself is truly representative of public opinion, given our typically low turnout at the polling station on the big day. And then there’s our bizarre “first past the post” system, which means that it’s actually extremely difficult for the LibDems to achieve a majority, even if most of the country were to turn yellow overnight. Political reform is high on the agenda for all three parties, and this is one thing I think will be looked at for next time around. Proportional representation is the buzzword. I remember reading about that during A-Level Sociology and while I can’t quite recall what it actually means right now (and, it being late, can’t quite be bothered to look it up), I’m pretty sure it’s rather more fair than the odd system we have right now.

The real winner of the debate, as already mentioned, was Twitter. Twitter, during any sort of “big” event (and I use the term loosely, since last year The Apprentice became a “big” event on Twitter) explodes with discussion and jokes. It’s where the “public” thing about Twitter really comes into its own. Anyone and everyone can post, and anyone and everyone can read what everyone else said. Everyone from my humble self to “them off the telly” like Charlie Brooker, Simon Pegg and numerous others were all at it. And while the volume of tweets was so high it was impossible to read them all and stay sane, it provided an interesting snapshot of how people were reacting to everything, on a real-time basis. Gaffes the politicians made were caught immediately – “every time I go to Afghanistan I get blown away” being my particular favourite – and several people took it upon themselves to count how many times they attempted a lame joke (often), a successful joke (rare) or a flirtation with an attractive audience member (a clear victory for Clegg).

The other entertaining thing about today was the front-page article from the Daily Mail accusing Clegg of a “Nazi” slur. The reason for this? This article from 2002 (yes, 2002), in which Clegg, then an MEP, hit out at the misplaced sense of British self-satisfaction, when Germany, having been beaten down from not one but two World Wars, had achieved rather more significant financial and cultural success than we have. I happen to agree with him. Does that mean I’m making Nazi slurs too? The Mail didn’t even seem particularly clear on what they were accusing him of. Given that they had to go back eight years to find anything even vaguely controversial to dig up, they’re clearly more than a bit desperate.

The LibDems have balls, I have to give them that. After the Mail‘s accusation, a political blog and a Lib Dem councillor allegedly seeded the Twitter hashtag #nickcleggsfault, where anyone and everyone would have the opportunity to blame Nick Clegg for something that clearly wasn’t his fault. It’s a joke that could have so easily backfired, but Twitter, itself overwhelmingly LibDem at present, took it to heart and has spent the whole day “blaming” Clegg for everything from the unpronouncable, unspellable Icelandic volcano that has brought so much irritation to air travellers, to John Romero’s Daikatana. (I may have had something to do with that last one.)

This is the first time the election has felt like it “mattered”. Thirteen years of Labour has turned a lot of people into cynics, which would explain the nation’s poor turnouts at the last few elections. But hopefully, with all the buzz surrounding this one thanks to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other means of online social networking, this may well be a year we start to see some big changes in British politics. And, as lovely as those beautiful old buildings down in Westminster are, what goes on inside them is in serious need of a big kick in the arse.

It’s probably pretty clear from all this that I will be voting yellow all the way. I’m not saying you should, too. But you should at least vote. It would be heartening to know that the nation actually gives a shit about something more important than bloody football for once.

#oneaday, Day 88: The Leaders’ Debate

Our potential leaders had their first ever American-style televised debate tonight. And, for the most part, I think it was a resounding success as a format. There was every possibility that it would become car-crash television – ITV’s cheap, nasty sets that looked like they were recycled from a 1980s episode of The Krypton Factor didn’t help – but it wasn’t. I was only half-watching due to being over at a friend’s house, but the parts I saw looked pretty interesting.

Sure, the three party leaders continually came out with their favourite soundbites (so predictable were they, in fact, that Dave Turner came up with the Official Drinking Game of the Leaders’ Debate right here) but as an opportunity to see the three of them at work in a non-Parliamentary situation it was a good thing. Nick Clegg, in particular, who has been the butt of numerous comedians’ jokes for being the “third place” candidate, doomed to obscurity by not being leader of one of the “big two” parties, came across rather well. And opinion polls conducted after the programme aired suggested that well over 40% of viewers felt that Clegg “won” the debate. Of course, there are two more to go yet, and some have suggested that Cameron and Brown were too concerned with getting their claws into each other to consider Clegg a threat this time. Perhaps it will all change next time and be more of a fight for the LibDem leader. But, importantly, this debate showed that he is indeed a contender in the coming fight.

Twitter was fun to watch. The #leadersdebate hashtag had an entertaining mix of jokes but also some decent discussion and commentary, too. A large number of tweets seemed to be very positive towards the LibDems, too, so could this perhaps be taken as an indication that change is a-comin’? Or is it just a sign that most people on Twitter are LibDem supporters? Who knows.

One thing’s for sure: this election is actually going to be worth watching for once. Many of our politicians are stuffy, boring, corrupt arseholes and this fact normally switches me off entirely from the whole thing. But this time around, it’s going to be quite a fight for the top spot, I think. (He says, from his woefully ill-informed position.) It’s certainly not a foregone conclusion by any means, and many people are already talking about the possibility of a hung Parliament. I can’t even begin to imagine how they’ll get anything done if that happens, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how things go.

And, you know, vote.