Wednesday 27 April 2005
The Election from Chicago #1
Frankly no one here seems to care or even knows of the impending General Election at home despite the fact we all had to live through a year of their's but Addick Wyn Grant is helping to leak the news to the well read folk of Chicago.
He was quoted in today's Chicago Tribune explaining that unlike the hugely influential and scary religious right here, the UK Conservative party and the populate are not swayed to vote one way or the other on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. "Britain really is quite a secular society, more like Scandinavia than the United States," Wyn said.
The article states that Labour had a solid lead in the polls but "It's not that Britons love Blair. They don't,"
However we "haven't warmed up to either of his two main opponents, the Conservatives' Michael Howard and the Liberal Democrats' Charles Kennedy. Howard has tried to make growing public concerns about immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, calling for strict quotas on immigrants and an offshore processing procedure for all asylum seekers. But the immigration issue seems to have done little damage to Blair, and it may even have helped the far-right British National Party siphon a few votes away from the Conservatives, often called Tories." Ah, Tories, I thought the Tories and the Conservatives were two different parties an American once told me!
Jamie Oliver's school lunches gets a mention in the article as does the other famous Brit "bad-boy" Prince Harry. No word of Simon Cowell though. Watch this space.
Full article here. ¶ 17:06
He was quoted in today's Chicago Tribune explaining that unlike the hugely influential and scary religious right here, the UK Conservative party and the populate are not swayed to vote one way or the other on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. "Britain really is quite a secular society, more like Scandinavia than the United States," Wyn said.
The article states that Labour had a solid lead in the polls but "It's not that Britons love Blair. They don't,"
However we "haven't warmed up to either of his two main opponents, the Conservatives' Michael Howard and the Liberal Democrats' Charles Kennedy. Howard has tried to make growing public concerns about immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, calling for strict quotas on immigrants and an offshore processing procedure for all asylum seekers. But the immigration issue seems to have done little damage to Blair, and it may even have helped the far-right British National Party siphon a few votes away from the Conservatives, often called Tories." Ah, Tories, I thought the Tories and the Conservatives were two different parties an American once told me!
Jamie Oliver's school lunches gets a mention in the article as does the other famous Brit "bad-boy" Prince Harry. No word of Simon Cowell though. Watch this space.
Full article here. ¶ 17:06
