The Strangest Things...

Well this has been the most interesting election I remember. After an eventful campaign the big question was whether the Liberals would work with either party or if the Tories would form a minority government. All weekend the assumption had been that they would work with the Tories, then yesterday they switched to Labour. By the afternoon it didn't look like anything fruitful would emerge but who knew? What a difference a CU meeting makes. We left home about 7pm to go get to campus before the meeting started, and when we got back Mr Brown had resigned and Mr Cameron had taken over with Mr Clegg as his deputy. Weird. At least now we know what is going to happen for the next 5 years (ish). A government can be removed by a no confidence vote of 55% of MPs. The Tories currently have 47% so it's not going to happen any time soon. This has been a long week so far.

We have just come through a general election and currently the Conservatives (Tories) and the Liberal Democrats are in talks over a deal to decide who can run the country. Given the lively election campaign most people were expecting a hung parliament, given the Clegg effect after the debates and a lack of faith in Gordon Brown. When the exit polls were published the political commentators frankly didn't believe them. But with all but one of the seat declared the poll has shown itself to be fairly accurate. The Tories have taken many seats, mainly in England, but are likely to be 19 shy of an overall majority. Now assuming that the Sinn Fein MPs do not vote, and discounting the speaker and his three deputies, there are (or will be) 641 voting MPs. This means a majority is, in practice, 321 rather than 326. This is complicated somewhat as the speaker is counted as one of the Tory MPs and the deputies could come from any party. Nick Clegg is talking to the Tories first ...

I was looking at the Westminster 2010 declaration  and I thought it would be interesting to see if the party candidates were skewed one way or the other. The MPs are asked if the will pledge to ‘respect, uphold and protect the right of Christians to hold and express Christian beliefs and act according to Christian conscience'. The website has five categories of MPs, which I have identified with the letters A to E.      A: Has signed the pledge      B: Past record suggests supportive      C: Position unclear of unknown      D: Past record suggests unsupportive      E: Will not make pledge I just thought it might interest you. Check out the candidates in your constituency .

Well, this is going to be fairly a fairly sprawling post because there are a few things I was going to post but didn't get round to. First things second, how amazing is Doctor Who ? It's definitely come miles since it restarted a few years ago. I'm still unsure about vyhis new doctor or the odd new darleks but aren't the weeping angels scary? blink was always one of my favorite episodes - the idea is trurlely the stuff of nightmares. Roll on tomorrow's episode is all I can say. Also I watched  Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince  today. I have to agree with many of the criticisms of the early films, such as the lack of experience of the kids, but sticking with them has certainly payed off. The characters are supposed to have known each other for years, and as this group of actors actually has grown up together shows in the chemistry on screen. Despite the magic surrounding the story the relationships seem very true to life and slightly more subtle than other...