More Slow Blogging

Yes, more slow blogging has been the order of the day (or rather, the week). I suppose I'm saving myself up for the blog-a-thon that will be taking place after this weekend. But honestly, what a week to get blogger's block! The USA votes for its first black president and millions around the world celebrate the beginning of the end of Bush's tenure. One thing that strikes me about Barack Obama's campaign has been his and his team's ability to mobilise massive numbers to get the vote out. One would hope that with the election over, not all of this energy has been safely dissipated by the electoral process. Now millions have actively participated in a successful political movement, primarily because they identify itself with the progressive cloth Obama has draped himself in, I'm audacious enough to hope the labour movement will absorb some of this energy and drive.

The Republicans have certainly made a dogs dinner out of their campaign. One mistake (welcome from the socialist point of view) was the stupidity of McCain to label Obama's obviously popular plan to deliver a tax cut for 95 per cent of Americans as 'socialist'. By associating this with socialism, you can be sure a few million are doing their bit to investigate socialist ideas in more depth, and even if they don't go much beyond the Wikipedia page, this is a very welcome development.

Speaking of welcome developments - for the government - Gordon Brown must be a happy man today. The media's 'Labour's recovery' narrative now seems halfway plausible. Labour actually increased its vote on the 2005 tally (19,395 to 19,946), whereas the big losers were the Tories and the Lib Dems. The Tories saw their support halve and the yellow party's vote collapsed. The swing to the SNP seemed to come from these quarters rather than Labour. And once again, the far left vote performed very badly - the combined vote being significantly lower than the SSP's 2005 performance (299, down from 705). I may not have much time for political science, but it is an empirical truism that the electorate tends to punish disunity. Amateur psephologists can compare 2008 and 2005 here and here.

Right, I'm off. See you on the other side of Socialism!