Brits to Elect New Officials in 2010

Now, I have just been checking my new 2010 diary. I really don't want to miss the Special Heart Failure Congress in Berlin this coming May, or the International Symposium on Obesity in Stockholm in July; although I might have to forego the Artificial Intelligence Conference in Atlanta. They clash. It's a great pity.

Mind you there's only one big thing on the way in the British diary - and that's the election of a new government - probably in May or June - the prospect of which is already driving most of us insane with boredom. We are faced with the choice between Gordon Brown - a bumbling Prime Minister who has presided over one of the most unpopular Labour administrations for years - and David Cameron - a fresh faced zealot who was educated at the top people's school Eton and now leads the British Conservative party.

Neither of them is offering the electorate anything in the way of a good time. In fact ever since the world economy started to go belly-up, the nature of political promises has completely altered.

In Britain, as we enter 2010, the two big parties are trying to prove just how frugal they can be. Once they used to outdo each other with generous pledges to make life better. Now they are rivals in the austerity stakes desperately trying to boast how much more they will cut in public spending, and how it has to hurt real bad in order to work.

This year we are, in effect, invited to pick between Old Scrooge and New Scrooge. And frankly we are not very much interested in either, which is why I am wondering if the attractions of the Soccer World Cup in South Africa, or the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, or even the Ryder Cup staged in the wet wilds of a tiny little British province called Wales this year, might take my mind off our forthcoming dull election. Happy 2010, America.
By Ed Boyle