Amazing isn’t it? The General Election is just around the corner. Just thought I’d mention it.
Whew! General election. Okay. I thought it was the date we were all supposed to meet our doom or the devil or something.
Might well be on this side of the pond 
What are the big issues?
You elect Generals! WoW!
We only elect politicans in Canada.
MarkB
School dinners (quality and cost thereof).
Immigration
Education
Healthcare
Law enforcement
Tax and public spending
War and Terrorism
I think the School dinners really caught the nation’s imagination. And in case it didn’t, both parties are setting up the gypos as targets for the nation’s outrage. If the gypsy ploy doesn’t work, they’ll fall back to the standard immigration plan to whip up a bit of interest.
Nuts, I forgot “Maternity Leave” from the Big Issues list. That’s got to be worth a few votes.
What is the issue about gypsies?
So, it’s expensive foreign food vs. cheap British fare? 
I’ll have five beers and celebrate Cinco de Mayo! 
Wow: 05/05/05. It looks most auspicious or something. If it weren’t already Cinco de Mayo, the date’s numeric tension makes me think I ought to perform some abstractly symbolic act to mark the day, like at least standing in the middle of the street with a candle aloft.
Ah well, the canny gypsies have been buying up loads of land, see? And then, the cheeky gits have been setting up their caravans and mobile homes and things on their land.
Which is totatlly contrary to local Planning byelaws.
If a householder wants to build an extension or a garage or a granny-attic, he has to apply for Planning Permission from the local council. It takes a very long time, and costs a lot of money.
But the gypos don’t bother with Planning permission. Why, it’s outrageous! They club together to buy a tract of land no-one else wants, and gor blimey, next thing you know they’re living on it without Planning Permission!
It’s a national scandal, or so the politicians woul d have us believe. According to them, millions of good honest folk all over middle England are up in arms and outraged by this flagrant violation of Planning Byelaws.
So we should all vote for Labour or the Tories, and then go and burn the gypos.
Sadly though, not many folks appear to be into burning gypos or forming lynch-mobs, so both major parties are now targetting Immigration (legal or illegal) to whip up some nationalistic fervour against “Them”, the ‘them’ being anyone other than a True Brit or a bona fide member of the EU.
It’s the school dinners issue which is really at the heart of it all though. That and promises of increased maternity pay (which is great if you’re an ovulating female) but not so great if you’re a small business whose key employees are ovulating females. But that’s contraversial and we should all be thinking about school dinners, gypos, and aliens instead. And taxes. And the fate of MG Rover and the Chinese who could’ve saved the British Motor industry but didn’t, the gits. Now is not a good time to be a chinese gypsy illegal immigrant working in a school canteen. (Unless you’re pregnant, then you can look forward to £172 a week tax-free with your old job guaranteed to be there six months after you’ve produced).
This all sounds strangely familiar somehow. In Iowa people from Central America come and work at horrible jobs which no one else will do and they thereby keep the meat packing industries in the state, benefitting us all, so why not pass an english is the official language law? Just to make them feel welcome, I guess.
No 5/5/05 isn’t when we meet out fate with the devil. That would be 6/6/06. If we can get through that then the next year we’ll have 7/7/07 which should be lucky! —The first 12 years of every century have this of course but it does make me stop and remark about it if I’m in the store and writing a check on one of those days. Then someone from the back of the line says ‘hey move it along up there!’
mike