The One About a The Election

I was looking forward to writing this blog. I really was. I had it all planned out. I was going to start ruminating about how, with the dark mornings and nights, it was starting to feel really Christmassy. I was then going to say if it was getting near the festive period then it would soon be pantomime time. Except it wouldn't because it was the wrong time of year. I was then going to deliver my punchline - that there may be no real pantomime but the political antics on the other side of the globe would do very nice thank you.

Except I can't. Not a bit of it. I realised, or rather have come to realise over the course of the last few days, that this is serious. No laughing matter. The choice that the UK is about to make will have a profound impact for the next five years. One way or another. For better or worse.

Ironically I feel more engaged in this election than any other despite being out of the firing range. Each new headline was poured over, performances analysed, stats discussed and predictions made and remade. It was a lot like football. And with each passing day the excitement and anxiety have become palpable. And I'm not the only one. In our office alone there are many who share the same excitement. Some of them have been away from the UK for over ten years yet they understand the importance of this election. Strange.

What makes this one different is that I will be able to watch events unfold, courtesy of the BBC website of course, whilst I go about my Friday afternoon workload. I won't quite know the result before the majority of the UK but it's as good as. Rather than wake on Friday morning and face the facts, I'll see it unfold, declaration by declaration, seat by seat. It really is like watching a really important game of football. Except this result will affect millions. Yes, I know football is important, but even the famous Bill Shankly quote about it being more important than life itself isn't really true. Not in this case anyway.

By the time folks back home read this it may all be over. Polls will be closed and the damage will be done. Except we won't know it yet. In the digital age of instant gratification it is satisfying that there are some things that you still have to wait for. But it's going to be an agonising wait.

So I'll leave the pantomime jibe for another time. And anyway, there are enough political comedy moments here in NZ. This is, after all, the country with a Prime Minister whose recent hair-pulling antics are simply one in a long line of embarrassing moments. If you haven't heard about it just type "John Key hair pull" in to Google and relive the moment when the PM of NZ was exposed for being a serial hair puller. Astonishing. I'm not sure any of our political leaders would be quite a popular if they went around pulling the hair of waitresses in cafes. And, given the amount of exposure a bacon sandwich got, God knows what the visceral UK press would make of a PM who pulls hair. If only that was the only damage Cameron had done.

Anyway UK. Vote. Vote well. But above all vote. It matters. You've got ten minutes.