#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.

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 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.

#oneaday, Day 79: Morning!

Good morning! 2am today. BED ERROR.

Actually, I have a marginally good reason for it this time – I was waiting up to see if there was a response from a PR representative for an article I was writing. This is something I’ve not had to do before. I probably didn’t need to wait up quite so late as I did (and play a bit of Game Room) but, well what are you going to do? (The PR rep did respond in the end, incidentally.)

So… what to talk about this time? How about the election, seeing as how it’s on everyone’s lips and Twitter feeds at the moment. Unless you’re not British, in which case you probably couldn’t give a damn what feckless idiot steps up to the plate to run our country further into the ground.

It’s going to be a strange election this time around. The government we’ve had in for the last God-knows-how long (“Labour”, for the non-British readers out there, a party traditionally associated with socialism but which has seen something of a drift towards the middle as time has gone on) has disillusioned rather a lot of people. The fact our leader is one of the most uncharismatic, doublespeak-speaking arses in British politics at the moment (not to mention the fact that we didn’t elect him) has, amongst other things, pissed off a lot of people who are ready for a change.

But the alternatives… we have the Conservative party (traditionally the “other side” to Labour, but which has again drifted rather towards the middle as time has passed) fronted by Captain Middle Class, also known as David Cameron. To give him credit where it’s due, Cameron is a better public speaker than Gordon Brown, but he is unashamedly and completely middle-class which I can’t help feeling is going to count against him. While there are a lot of middle-class people in this country, there are also a lot of working class people who think he’s nothing but a posh git. Hell, there are plenty of middle-class people who think he’s a posh git, too. Smarmy, overly-Photoshopped advertising campaigns haven’t helped, either.

Then there’s the Liberal Democrats, aka “the ones that never get in”. Traditionally, people have voted LibDem when they don’t like the other two. There’s going to be a lot of that this time around, with Labour having disillusioned a lot of people with the failures of the last thirteen years and the Conservatives alienating entire socioeconomic groups by being incredibly white and middle class. It, sadly, wouldn’t be surprising to see more radical parties like the BNP (aka “the racist ones”) get more of a foothold in Parliament.

Of course, I’m stating all this without any great understanding of the whole proceedings. This is just my opinion. But early buzz seems to suggest that we may well end up with a “hung Parliament” this time around, with no party holding a clear majority. I have no idea what that means for the country. It might actually make this election interesting for once, though.

Pity none of our politicians have the charisma of Obama. Whatever you may think of the President’s policies, you can’t argue with the fact that the man knows how to speak to a crowd.