Westminster Day...Happy Chinese New Year!
Wow. Haven't read flist for two day and was on skip=150 and that is without communites, (exception these two because they are pretty) only personal posts. Am dreading what will happen when I go on holiday and have huge admiration for anyone with more than 100 people friended.
But yesterday I was in London for Westmisnster day and it was very good, could have been better, (some people were idiots) but I liked it. I can't believe that last year's was such a long time ago, I remeber it so well, rereading the post I made then I remeber everything I said like it was yesterday. Having a journal really is a good thing. And now for this year's behind a cut, because it will be long and not very interesting if you don't care about British Politics. Oh and before I forget we were filmed, I don't know if it is going to be on telly or not, but a huge camera was right behind me and every time I turned around it stared at me, it was scary
We had to meet at the school at half six, which meant getting up at half five. Not so fun. The journey there, while uneventful was long (3 hours!) and the only thing worth noting was that half the bus sang out loud to a Hanson song and the boys insucessfully attempted to chat up unsuspecting and slightly perplexed lorry drivers. Although one did smile back.
We were half on hour late, but because traffic was a bitch they delayed it for half an hour and we didn't miss anything. The chair was not John Snow like last year because he didn't turn up, instead we had the leader of the young Lib Dems and he looked about 19 had floppy hair and was so cute I wanted to pet him.
First we had Ann something, the Labour MP for Cambridge who was ok. Her speech was the usual "in our time as a government we did this and this etc" but she answered difficult questions pretty well and did resign from the Government over Iraq. She did vote for Top Up fees but I am starting to warm up on them, as not paying upfront can possibly mean more people can afford university.
Well Ann was not bad, but Simon Hughes was amazing. Not I am not being biased, my friend, a very firm conservative liked him too. He was enthusiastic and energetic and genuine. He wooed us with stories of how he took two homeless people into his house, helped them find jobs and ensured they stayed in his friends' house afterwards. He told us horific stories of Asylum seekers and people forced to leave the country after escaping from impossible situations. one girl, (the result of her mother being raped by a priest) was treated like a slave and came here only to me made to go back. There were more, a lot more. Every so often (the guy could hardly complete a sentence) we burst into spontaneous applause. It was great. I am aware of spin and that the guy had buckets of charisma but it really was good. He was asked some intelligent and some redundant questions and answered them well. I don't know how they can answer stupid questions without being snarky, I wouldn't be able to.
The conservative MP, David Cameron was an all right guy but he never stood a chance. First of all he was after Simon, second he was third and after a few hours there people were restless and hungry. Even I kept daydreaming. Nevertheless he didn't deserve booing. Some people did cheer when he came out, but the booing was out of place and disprespectful. He was bland and proceeded to resite why being a conservative is a great thing, even if not really that popular among young people at the moment. Then he babbled on about small government and individual power, the usual thing, just in too many unnecessary words. By that time I was starving.
When he finished we had a mock election which was won by the Lib Dems with a landslide, which Labour lost. Odd. I guess the younger you are the more inclined to choose more extreme views and less to have a centralist opinion.
Then there was lunch and much rejoycing. Last year we left and went to look around Parliament, but the venue was moved and it was too far away. The only thing we were told is not to go on the tube, so we went to Waterloo station on the search for food. The brief debate to catch the EuroStar and spend the afternoon in Paris was discarded as we decided that eating took precedent. I had a sandwich and gave most of my crust to pigeons to the upmost disgust of my friends. I guess the pigeons weren't a pleasant sight (one had one leg, the others had broken/mouldy lookng feet) but still being mean to them was not very nice. It was full with police and dogs that kept sniffing at us, there were some cute puppies that were being trained. I also bough possibly the best desert ever in the form of a profiterole with chocolate, cream and mousse and it was amazingly gorgeous.
After lunch there was an education debate which was entertaining as all the MPs (there was one to represent each party) became very argumentative and adversary and it was cute to see them nod in agreement or shake their head in mock horror. Here I liked the tory guy (gasp! shock!) he was cute. Well not in that way, he answered well and he had funny facial expressions. Nothing new was said here, but it was interesting to see them interact. It was a pity that the people chosen to ask questions were mostly the same and no one from my school had the chance, it was frustrating for people to ask the same things over and over. Some questions sounded really stuck up and were infact wrong, and it was nice to see that the MPs actually told them that. Some people aparently weren't aware of the meaning of question and after much stammering prodeuced random statements, overall the quality was pretty low with some gems pretty much overlooked when it came to the answers.
Then there followed a lengthy talk by the chair of Liberty which was interesting at first but as the MPs booked had to cancel because of an important debate in the commons she had to talk for way too long and began repeating herself. Her argument against idenity cards was inconvonsing, as she continuously stated that they go against out social and civil liberties, without really saying why and came out quite paranoid and slightly neurotic. I was pretty much undecided on the issue, leaning against them but not knowing enough to make up my mind and she didn't convonce me at all.
Then we had to leave, before the end as to be back on time. A fact we were not told previously by a teacher and thank god we saw a couple of people and realised we had to go, it would have been funny if they left without us.
The journey there was even more dull as I ate my huge chocolate cookie and dreamed of my bed.
This is the longest post ever and not one person is going to read it. Oh well, I enjoyed writing it. Am going to continue catching up on flist now.