UK moving towards US Presidential-style politcs...?

[JIG]

Slightly misleading title, but indulge me.

I'm a little disturbed by the recent "televised debates" in the UK...not because I have anything in particular against any of the participants (how could I, I'm a dumb Amurkan), but because it seems to be a move towards electing personalities and not policies.

For years, I've admired UK politics because, depsite the fact that each party has its own "face" such as Cameron, Clegg, Brown, Pearson, Griffin, etc., the voters appear to vote for a party and their policies as opposed to the particular person acting as it's head at the given moment. Now, I don't reside in the UK, so maybe I'm off the mark with that particular assessment. Anyway...

...here in the US, its a bit different. We elect the President, sadly, as much on how much we like them as a person as we do their policies. Bad juju, IMO. Regardless, that's they way its been done ever since the first televised debate between Nixon and someone I cannot remember.

Anyone else think this is bad move on the part of Parliament?

[Stinky]

I thought yu were armenian...WTF?

[JIG]

Where the fuck did you get that I was Armenian???

PUT DOWN THE PILLS

[what]

Our politics have been increasingly presidential since Thatcher (1980s). Blair going to war on the basis of a unilateral decision (no vote of parliament, not even a cabinet vote... just him, one guy, deciding to go to war, even though only about 30,000 people voted for him) pretty much pissed on all our history and made him an unelected president.

Chances are we'll see some fairly major voting reform thanks to the Liberal Democrats having half a hand on the reins of power... will be interesting to see how that pans out.

As a side note, although it will take years/decades to clean up the mechanics of the most intrusive police state the world has ever seen, it's fucking great to have a new government that doesn't feel it has the right to intrude into every fucking area of everyone's life.

Brown and all his henchmen should do the decent thing and eat a gun after making a full and contrite apology to the people of this country.

[FORCEFED]

crikey

[Stinky]

Wassup with Bron resigning?

Wassup with the euro going to shit?

[Sonuvabitch]

I spent my formative years in English primary schools. It was a good five years, all told. I still spell weird because of it. Those people don't care about the jazz that we care about. Things like liberty and freedom are laughable concepts to them. Those Orwellians place all their trust in government. Their closed-circuit society is good for them, a tiny island off the european continent, that they have the gumption to make commentary on people who live here.

I met with this guy the other day. We were at a pub. He had this ape with him. Not a literal ape. Just a big fucking homo sapien. All I was talking to him about was cheap distribution of some aluminum. His ape frisked me and saw that I had a piece of hardware on me. He didn't know what to do. It's not like I'm a fucking gangster or something, but you know what? I think this guy was a gangster. But they didn't know how to react to me. Just because I have a firearm doesn't mean I'm going to shoot somebody. And if you're doing something for a living that requires your associates to frisk people, then you're in the wrong line of business.

[Stinky]

Define 'aluminum'.