A week till the election, and a crazy parliamentary system.....

Hmmmm. I am sitting here staring at the blank page and am waiting for the muse to strike. The muse is absent without leave.

I woke to a beautiful sunny day, got the washing outside to dry, opened the greenhouses, and took yet more photos of the flowers, after inspecting the potatoes, which are jet propelled, it seems. They grow inches over night. And then at lunch time, David and I ventured out to search for new jeans. In the sun.

Just one hour later (and yes, the jeans have been bought) we got home to rain, wet washing and a swamp-like garden. And now the house looks like a laundry and smells of damp clothes. I must have missed the weather forecast, because at the exact point where the house morphed into a laundry, a friend popped in for a visit. And told me that rain had been forecast. Quite. I missed it. And the sink was full of dirty dishes too. We would not make the pages of Homes and Garden today.

Just as well I am not overly bothered by order, and that I think people are more fun than a tidy house. It is all in the confidence, people. I pretend it is all perfect. Hahahahaha. The tea is good though.

We had a lively discussion re the General Election next week, Gordon's Gaffe yesterday about bigots, and the Leaders Debate #3 happening tonight. Not to mention the state of the nation, education, health care and exactly how are we as a nation going to reduce the appalling debt we catapulted into with the recession and collapsing banks. None of the 3 parties are being specific. they seem to think we are idiots. Everyone with a brain cell knows we are going to have a tough time. We just want to know what they are cutting. What they are raising. And when.

It seems ridiculous at a time when so many companies have gone to the wall, and the remainder have trimmed back to bare essentials to be able to keep trading, that we have a public service sector, populated with unnumerable quangos (what exactly is the plural of quango?? -oes?-i?) which is mushrooming. It has to be trimmed back. In fact, it needs to be pruned radically.

This is an interesting and unique election, you know. We have never had leaders debating on TV before, and for the first time ever, it seems that the voters will be voting according to their preferred leader, and not so much their local candidates.

Mind you, I have yet to catch a glimpse of our candidates. Any of them. They have not arrived on the doorstep, neither have there been many flyers, and certainly no calls. Or canvassers. I had to look up the constituency on the internet to see who was actually standing, and then discovered that one of the candidates did not even bother to check his web page for spelling and grammar mistakes. Guess who is off my list already.

The thing which totally enrages me is the absolutely crazy rule in our "constitution" which means that if the Labour Party comes LAST in the election, but the party which gets the most votes does not have a clear majority, the existing government, which means the Labour Party, is given the first opportunity to form a government. WHAT?????????? It is CRAZY. There would be rioting on the streets. Unthinkable.

Here is what the BBC says about it ".......
if this is the case Gordon Brown, as the incumbent prime minister, will have the right to stay on and try to form an administration. This is even if the Conservatives have the most seats. He does not have to go until it is obvious that he does not command the confidence of Parliament - which would mean being defeated on the Queen's Speech vote, or, if he survived that, a subsequent no confidence motion in the Commons. "

Watch this space. Life in the UK could just become interesting.