Despite the fact we're only about ninety minutes' drive from a major European mountain range, this city practically never gets snow. Winters oscillate around 0° centigrade and it drizzles consistently from December to March. This year, though, has seen a cold snap that has even got the old guard chattering: two lots of snow (including one bout that settled for three days) in December, another lot in January and a sprinkling just the other day. I'd like to ascribe it man-made global warming, but that theory seems to be under major scrutiny, right now.
Following my abortive attempts to get French citizenship with a view to voting in the 2005 Presidential Elections, here, I'd resigned myself to being voiceless for the duration of my prolonged expatriation. However, I learned the other day that you can still get a postal vote if you register within 15 years of leaving Britain. I left Highgate for Los Angeles in 1997 so that gave me two years to get myself mobilised. Off went a filled-out registration form to Haringey Council, oh they of the Loony Left, promptly followed by another this morning when I realised I hadn't put enough postage on the first one. It might still get through, but I'm not so sure La Poste will not shrug, say 'bof' and just chuck it in the nearest bin when they see it's 14 cents short. I looked at the candidates that stood in 2005 and, apart from getting a nice, warm fuzzy feeling when I saw that Labour had been ousted in Hornsey and Wood Green in favour of the LibDems, realised I wasn't getting excited about any of the candidates, least of all the less-than-zero chance the least noxious parties have of getting elected.
What result will 2010 bring? Dave, the re-suited Blair? Gormless Brown and his ragtag- and-bobtail assortment of liars, freeloaders, patronising social engineers and morally and intellectually bankrupt cheats? Sadly, it's going to be one of those two charlatans, so the best we can do is vote strategically. Compared to their German counterparts, the Greens are a joke, UKIP appears to be a one-policy stand-up act, the LibDems wouldn't know what to do with power if it came up and abused their Human Rights and the BNP still turn too many people off, though I'm sure many will vote for them in secret. It's impossible to guage how much support they're likely to have: those who express themselves on the internet are either hard-line anti or worshippers at the shrine. Now that the party has chosen the path of least resistance and opened itself up to ethnic minorities some of the stigma attached to their image may dissolve, particularly if they capitalise on Mr. Singh, the 78-year-old retired maths teacher from Northamptonshire, who has been an unconditional fan of Griffin's party since 2001.
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