It was unusually sunny this morning at the Central London polling station when I voted in the UK General Election. If the steady stream of voters I saw is anything to go by, turnout looks to be high – up to 70 per cent from the 60 per cent turnout in 2005. There are many reasons for this… and not of a few of them connected to Obama’s campaign in 2008, which not only re-energised my interest in politics (and the left wing blogosphere) but captivated the country.
But the kind of change the British General Election has ushered isn’t that obvious, as can be seen from thee front page the Murdoch-owned best-selling conservative leaning Tabloid this morning.
Yes, you got it. The people who supported John McCain, the company that brings you the 24 hour asinine right wing ass-hattery of FOX TV, have the temerity to use the Obama Change image as their crucial headline.
‘It was the Sun Wot Won it’ was the famous refrain after the tabloid claimed it swayed the last close election – in 1992 – for the Tories. Recently, the Political Editor of The Sun told some journalists recently that his job was ‘to win the fucking election for David Cameron’ (one of his predecessors on the Sunday Murdoch Tabloid is none other than the Conservative Campaign Honcho). There are several transparent financial interests that the Murdoch Empire has in a Conservative election victory in the UK, as the spoofters have already spotted..
More of these to be found here. But the bigger question is – how can a Conservative candidate be an avatar of change? And what kind of change is the UK looking for?