I’m not entitled to vote here, and if I were I would be a non-voter on principle. Still, the UK election has provided a fascinating contrast to my years of observing US elections. Although the outcome of this particular election doesn’t point toward a government with which I’d be likely to sympathise, I am pleased to see a hung Parliament, within which people will actually have to work with one another.
In my district, Glasgow North, my vote (were I a voter) would probably have gone to Angela McCormick, the fighting Socialist. Sadly, she only got 287 votes, fewer even than the neo-fascist BNP candidate (296). I don’t know much about the Green candidate, and both Tory and Labour candidates were right out (Tory just in general, Labour because she staunchly defended the revolting Digital Economy Act). That leaves the Lib Dems and the Scottish National Party (and the Greens). I don’t know which way I’d have voted between them, but if I didn’t vote Socialist I’d have been tempted to vote Lib Dem to get someone besides Ann McKechin (Labour) into Parliament. But all that is strictly, multiply hypothetical anyway.
I see benefits to hung Parliament, but I’m uneasy about (if you excuse this way of putting it) the way it is hung. As things stand, there is but one Tory seat in Scotland. I can’t see this ending well under the most likely scenario (Cameron somehow puts together a government), since any cuts to Scotland will taste like English Conservatives serving their (unrepresented in government) Scots serfs bread and water. Wales’s vote is more evenly distributed, and I don’t know how the Northern Irish seats align themselves. But unless something remarkable happens, the UK is in not only for hard economic times, but also for some pretty awkward political maneuvering for the next few years.