The BBC needed to fill the time between Obama winning and his speech, so they decided to get this author, Gore Vidal, to talk to them a bit. I think they probably wished they hadn't pretty soon. I found it hilarious and really hope it goes viral:



So many quotes...

As a beam of light fell on my face, I woke up this morning to a deep elation that Obama had won the elections, and feel back to sleep, content.

After getting out of bed, I can't describe how wonderful it was to look at the map of the US that I'd coloured in as results came in til 6 in the morning, to see the expanse of blue around the great lakes and spreading down the East coast, and to see the Republicans relegated to the Deep South and empty Western states where they belong.

Reading the papers, I can honestly say that I was almost moved to tears by the sense of euphoria and hope that has swept the entire world, political leaders and everyday people. Europeans, of course, have nothing but unbridled enthusiasm for Obama, but so too, it seems, do Africans, Arabs, Latin Americans, Japanese, Indonesians... Finally, the world will be able to respect America again after 8 catastrophic years of Bush.

Personally, I'm just glad that we'll be getting rid of Bush. I would dearly, dearly love to see the man tried for war crimes for his planned, unnecessary and arguably illegal war on Iraq, and it saddens me deeply that the structure of world politics prevents this from happening. Obama represents an end to US warmongering.

As for Obama, I am glad he will be President, and whatever he does, I think we must remember that the alternative was McCain, who would be infinitely worse. There are so many expectations of Obama that he can't possibly fulfil them all. And, of course, we Europeans must remember that Obama is, by our standards, a right-wing politician; that like any other President of the US, he will be inextricably linked to lobbyists and big business. The word "socialist" has been bandied around by McCain; I am an actual socialist, and I know that Obama will not create anything even approaching my dream society.

That said, I look forward to some things of him. Domestically, his tax cuts will benefit millions - ironically, they'll help the poor states that voted McCain most of all. I don't really understand the American healthcare system (if it can be called a system), but I understand Obama will kind of introduce universal healthcare for children, which is a step in the right direction.

Internationally, I look forward to the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Bush has destroyed an entire nation, Iraq, for a generation, and nothing Obama does could possibly fix that. Faced with the options, I support his pullout although it will probably have disastrous short term ramifications.

I differ with Obama on Afghanistan. I'm not certain the war is at all winnable - it is a war against an ideology with no real opposition capable of defending itself. But if the war is to carry on, I hope that as Commander-in-chief, Obama makes some changes to how it is conducted. This morning, the President of Afghanistan asked Obama to bring to an end the airborne strikes targeting Afghan villages and killing civilians. Like him, I think the war cannot be won when airstrikes murdering civilians are constantly recruiting for the Taliban.

Overall, I am incredibly optimistic. I am ready to be let down by Obama, I know it is inevitable. I will complain about him. But I will always bear in mind that the only viable alternative was McCain, and then I will be thankful.

I'll keep it brief as I know it's hard to keep you guys reading with such a title.

The French are in the middle of their legislative elections to elect their députés in the Assemblé Nationale - in English, their MPs for their House of Commons. There are 577 of these.

How it usually works is so:
France is split up into 577 areas, each of which has one representative. There are two rounds of elections. In the first round, if somebody wins more than 50% of the vote, and if turnout is greater than 50%, they immediately win the seat. If not, every candidate who got more than 12.5% of registered (not cast) votes goes on to a second round.

You can see here that this is a weird mixture of FPTP (first past the post) and... well, I don't know really. It just tries to make sure the elected official is as popular as possible.

Now, obviously, you'd think it would be quite rare to win a seat straight off at the first round of voting. Usually it is. This year, however, 110 out of 577 seats have already been won. The depressing thing? 109 of them went to the right wing UMP party and its allies - which, disgustingly, includes a far-right party who have won 2 of those seats! Only one seat went to a Socialist.

It's predicted that the UMP will control about 70% of seats. I find that incredibly stupid. FPTP democracy is stupid and doesn't represent the will of the country. 40% of people support the UMP and they get 70% of seats. Meanwhile, a party with 7.6% of the vote - that's 2 million voters! - will most likely get 0.001% of the seats. I'm not a fan of democracy, but for those who are... surely they can see that that is ludricous? A proportional-representation system would be fairer and people wouldn't have to vote tactically.

So yes, left-wing France is screwed. Goodbye unions. Hello increase is regressive taxes.


In other news, the Far Right is the third biggest party in Belgium after their recent elections, with 12% of the vote.

People are stupid really isn't such a bad motto, you know.

Lal did say "wait for the riots and the strikes." They're here.

Youths have been rioting in the major cities since the results were announced. A school was torched, hundreds of cars have been burnt, and a man was even thrown into the Rhône! All this despite the leaders of the Socialist and Communist parties appealing for an end to the riots, as they will only make the right wing more determined to enforce law and order.

The first strikes have just begun. Students at the Sorbonne University have declared a strike against the university reforms Sarkozy aims to bring in regarding the right to strike and the rights of foreign students. "It's better to act straight away. How could we block entry to the university during the holidays? It will be closed."

The Sorbonne is one of the most prestigious Unis in France, and also the place where May '68 started.

Sometimes I really love the French. I mean the strikes, not the violence.

Sarkozy - 53%
Royal - 47%

This is a disappointment to me on two levels.

Firstly, I'm disappointed that Sarkozy, the man, is president. He's an aggressive bully and not a little racist and classist, as I've said. He also has too many friends in the media. I don't want that brute in charge of France.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I'm disappointed that his policies will be put into place. He's going to liberalise France, more or less ban striking, and force people to work unhealthy, American/British hours. Socialism is one thing that attracts me to France, and Sarkozy aims to kill it. He is the Thatcher of French politics. Who knows, people may look back on 6th May 2007 as the date the old France died.

Oh well. The French people have spoken and chosen a man who cannot enter poor areas for fear of his safety. We'll see how it goes... To make his Americophilic dreams a reality, his party will have to win the legislative elections (for the lower house of parliament) in June. Until then there is hope.

Well... bugger me. England sure does suck.

I can't believe so many people are gullible enough to fall for Cameron's party. I really dislike the man - he's just the kind of slimy, lying politician I particularly love to hate, along with Sarkozy.

I do dislike Labour a lot. They are a right-wing party, so this is natural. But at the same time, they are a right-wing party with leftist roots. Blair's legacy includes:

- Introducing the minimum wage
- 118 new hospitals
- 188 new GP clinics
- Waiting lists cut
- 20,000 more doctors and 70,000 more nurses
- Over 1,000,000 new jobs
- Fuel allowances, free TV licences and free travel for the elderly
- Free nursery places for all 3-4 year olds
- Gay rights in civil partnerships
- Devolution
- Peace in Northern Ireland.

Yes, he made mistakes and in many cases he betrayed the left - top up university fees, privatising the NHS, increasing the gap between rich and poor, cash-for-honours and of course Iraq, which was a calamity (but one that the Tories would also have led Britain into).

I can't claim to love Labour, but they are better than the Tories, and it took this thrashing and the risk of losing to the Tories for me to acknowledge it. The Tories say one thing and do another. Cameron says he supports gay rights and votes against them. He says he loves the environment, and his official car trails his bicycle everywhere. He says he's "compassionate" but his party are the same as ever; closet racists, closet homophobes and not-quite-closet classists.

So, yes, these elections were depressing. Democracy is a game of choosing the lesser of two evils, and that's what Labour are.

Locally, Labour won Luton council. The Lib Dems ran it with the Tories before, but Labour has won an outright majority. I'm not too happy about this; I'd prefer a Lib-Dem run council. Never mind.

When Scotland gains independence, I'm coming over. :)

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Far Right candidate who got 10% of the vote in the first round, has urged his supported to abstain from voting in the second round. We've yet to see how many will listen to him, but this should be a blow to Sarkozy and a boost to Royal. Meanwhile, relations between Royal and Bayrou, the centrist, seem much stronger than Bayrou-Sarkozy. Looks promising.

If you have no interest in French elections, do look away now...

Firstly, and most importantly, Ségolène Royal made it to the second round!

Sarkozy (Right) - 31.18%
Royal (Left) - 25.87%

The next two candidates were François Bayrou, the centrist who astonishingly managed to make it to third place with 18.57%, followed by Le Pen, the far-right fascist, with only 10.44%

Here's a table I made myself, showing the results according to ideology:

Affiliation	2002		2007
	votes	%	votes	%
Far Right	5,471739	19.2%	4,653733	12.67%
Moderate Right	7,209656	25.3%	11,871077	32.33%
Centre	3,598491	12.63%	6,820914	18.57%
Moderate Left	6,789088	23.83%	9,501295	25.87%
Far Left	5,429497	19.09%	3,877826	10.57%

So, I am glad Royal made it and wasn't knocked out. This was partly due to high turnout - 84% - to prevent Le Pen getting into second place again. It was partly due to smaller left-wing parties joining Royal's Socialist Party. But it was also because Royal exploited the fear of Le Pen getting to the second round again, launching an appeal to the anti-liberal left (communists, trotskyists, greens and altermondialists) to cast a "useful vote," i.e. one for her. 1.5 million of the anti-liberal left did indeed vote for her. The far-left's share of the vote fell from 19% in 2002 to 10.6%. However, I'm sure they won't regret it - she has promised the traditional left-wing policies of raising minimum wages and all that.

The Far-right also suffered this time, with their share of votes falling from 19% ro 12.7%. This was due slightly to the high turnout this time, but 800 000 of them - 15% - also chose to cast a "useful vote" this time round - for Sarkozy. Sarkozy has been courting the far right for a while now, so it's not surprising.

The centre has gained a huge number of votes. Infact, you can see some symmetry in the 2002 vote - 20-25-10-25-20. This time, though the right (moderate and extreme) keeps its 45% share of the vote, the left is down to 35%. The other 10% have defected to the centre. This is exactly why I resented Bayrou becoming a serious contender - he leans more to the left than to the right, and he split the left vote. Especially because polls showed that in the second round he could win against Sarkozy, whereas Royal would probably lose to Sarkozy.

This does, however, mean that a lot of the Bayrou vote will be anti-Sarkozy. It's the tradition in France for the unsuccessful candidates to declare who they will vote for in the second round, wich influences their followers of course. I feel confident that Bayrou will choose to support Royal, as will most of his party.

Opinion polls at the moment show that Sarkozy will get 54% in the second round, Royal 46%. I'm not worried though. I know the extreme left will support Royal (some already have pledged allegiance) but Le Pen hates Sarkozy! A French commentator said that most of the far-right would vote blank. Sarkozy is actually the son of an immigrant, so I think he'll only attract half of them at most.

On top of this, I'm confident that Bayrou will declare his allegiance to Royal rather than Sarkozy. What his party does remains to be seen, but a lot of them are leftists-in-exile.

I also think the ghettoes in France will activate themselves against Sarkozy. Sarkozy called them scum, which they didn't take too well. I feel that the traditionally apathetic poor will take to the polling booths to vote not for Royal, but against Sarkozy.

This time in 2 weeks, I think (and hope) that it will be la présidente instead of le président for the first time in French history.



A few ending things. I know I'm overexcited, but this does only happen every 5 years! Also, I don't get this excited about elections in the UK or US - France is just more interesting for a multitude of reasons.

Finally, a few interesting figures about French citizens living abroad who voted in the elections. In the US, Sarkozy got 55%! Typical. Meanwhile, liberal Canada gave Royal a 7 point lead with 38%. Most of Europe - Germany, Austria, Denmark for example - chose Royal over Sarkozy. I can't find figures for Britain.

Hooray! I remembered one of the things.

The French elections have made me think once again about the inadequacy of democracy. I won't go into all the obvious stuff - tyranny of the majority, the average person being too stupid to be able to run a country, etc.

On the news, I saw a young French woman deliberating whom to vote for. "I want to case a useful vote, which would mean Ségolène Royal and the Socialist Party. But my heart is with the Revolutionary Communist League."

This highlights the flaw in almost any democracy, which is that people have to vote tactically for who they think will get the most votes. I have no doubt that the communist parties would be quite a bit stronger if people actually thought they had a chance of winning.

The best idea I've seen to combat this is multiple rounds of voting. Whoever gets the least votes is struck off, and everybody votes again. Then, again, the candidate with the least votes is struck off and everybody votes for the remainder. This continues until there is only one left, ensuring that this one candidate has the greatest possible following in the country.

Yes, it would be horribly long and horribly expensive, but that would be proper democracy. If democracy is your kinda thing that is... Can't say it's mine, except on a local level.

French elections are very different to Britain or the USA. For one thing, they have about 10 parties.

April 22nd, in 4 days, is the first round of the presidential elections (presidential elections take place separately from elections for the Assemblé Nationale, their equivalent of the House of Commons, the lower house).

I say first round because the two candidates who gain the most votes go on to a second round, where everybody votes for one of the two. Whoever wins is president.

Now, usually, these two candidates are from the moderate left and moderate right. However, in 2002, for the first time ever, the far-right candidate made it into the second round, knocking the moderate left party, the Socialists, to third place. He beat them by just 0.5%. This shocked the world, and of course, the moderate right candidate won the second round by a huge margin.

Everybody is waiting to see if this will happen again. This time, even the moderate right candidate has shown himself to be racist. And, completely shockingly, a fourth candidate has emerged from the centre.

At the moment, polls show Sarkozy, the moderate-but-racist right in the lead with 27%, followed by Ségolène Royal from the Socialist party with 25%, the centist Bayrou with 19% and finally Le Pen, the fascist, with 15.5%.

What's notable, as I predicted, is that support has drained away from the various communist parties as the left are desperate to prevent another run off between two right wing candidates. This would usually mean the socialists would get to the second round, but Bayrou becoming a credible candidate has ruined this, as he's attracted a lot of left-leaning votes.

It's notable that in 2002, the polls said Le Pen only had about 14% support, and he still managed to get into the second round. Anything could still happen in the second round... lots of people probably lie to the pollsters because they're ashamed of voting for him.

I am of course supporting Ségolène Royal, though I wouldn't mind Bayrou. "Anything but Sarkozy" is my feeling, mirrored by much of the French left. I heard Royal admired Blair, which made me wary at first, but looking up her policies, I still support her. She only admires the sensible things Blair has done.

The Socialist Pary's logo is almost the same as that of the Second International, whose logo you see here as my userpic.