It's Always Sunny in London

Yeah right! But it has been sunny in the last week anyway! It's so rare to find mass quantities of sunshine anywhere in England, but the last week has been absolutely gorgeous. The forecast for the next 10 days is sparkling sunny skies and temperatures that keep creeping up as the weekend approaches to a wapping 21 degrees celcius (70 farenheit for those of you who, like me, are metric-challenged). I can't speak for the rest of England, but I can tell you London comes alive on a whole new scale when there is an abundance of sunshine...the whole city smiles. Everyone, and I mean everyone...is happy. It's wonderful.

Hence my absence from the blog. Sitting outside along the river surrounded by smiling, happy faces has been much more appealing than sitting on my couch clicking away on my netbook. But tonight I have succumbed to the power of the sun setting over the river and the fact that there is no better place to admire it then my very own living room, given the view from my bodacious pad.

There is something I have wanted to address in recent days which is the current political climate here (quite intriuging).

Most of you in the US probably aren't aware that the elections for Prime Minister are likely to occur in less than 2 weeks here. I say "likely" because unlike us they do not have a set date that elections happen on. They are considering May 6th to be the day, but that has yet to be finalized.

After experiencing the fervor and intensity of the last US Presidential election, I am completely dumbfounded by the complete opposite citizen reaction here. As you may well remember, in The States we were inundated and overloaded at every turn with campaign advertisements, debates, and interviews. We couldn't walk down the street with out having every sense bombarded with something related to the election. In my experience, I was so passionate about the election, that it consumed me, quite literally for almost a full year on a daily basis.

That is why I don't even have words to describe what it is like here, 2 weeks before the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world is about to be elected. There is no passion, no emotion, no conversation, very little media, nothing. It is absolutely bizzare. I have yet to hear any person voice either their approval or opposition of the three potential candidates (Gordon Brown: Labour Party and current prime minister; David Cameron: Tory Party; Nick Clegg: Liberal Democrat Party). There is only ONE thing I have heard from at least 15 people. It is almost always with regard to the funding of something or budget concerns.

"We will just have to wait and see what happens after the election".

Thats it. I swear on my life that, word for word, that is the only utterance I have heard regarding the election of the leader of Great Britain. Afterwards, there is never any semblance of a "side" the particular person is on, or who they hope does or does not get elected. Just this flat, neutral statement.

I think part of it may have to do with the difference in the issues which are relevant between the US and the UK. For us, I think there are very concrete ideals and perspectives that make you either a Democrat or a Republican. Many of things that we can be so passionate about changing (or keeping the same) in the US, aren't even really considered problematic here. For example the never-ending abortion debate - a colleague informed me that all three candidates here would be pro-choice, if it was even an issue. Or Gay Marriage...again, not an issue, all three would be a proponent of such.

Another interesting part of the political system here, which I just learned about is their actual election process. On the day of the election, when the masses come out to vote, people are not actually voting for one of the three prime minister candidates. Instead, they vote for their local MP (Member of Parliment) and whichever party has the most Members of Parliment elected is the candidate that wins. I had NO idea that this was the process. Every election process has its flaws I suppose, but man, this process seems REALLY flawed. What if, for example, you hate the MP running in your local area, but you very much want the candidate of that political party to be Prime Minister? It's a terrible position to be in!

From what I'm told, if I could vote here, I would almost certainly belong to the Lib Dems. Just the name makes me believe this is true! They are the underdog for this election apparently, which is unfortunate. After watching the first debate which was just last week, I was pickin up what Nick Clegg was laying down!

So in closing, I suppose the appropriate thing to say is "We will just have to wait and see what happens after the election"! :)