"No More Than Two MPs Allowed at a Time"

****My friend JenMac recently (and rightly so, I might add) got mad at me for my lack of posting lately. I humbly apologise. For some reason, I tend to start writing blog posts, save them, and promptly forget about them. Here is a post I started from way back - June 10th!****

On the walk home from work today I spotted a sign with the above slogan written on it. It was hanging in a local shop in the Cannonmills section of Edinburgh and it made me laugh out loud. For those of you not in the know, many of the UK's politicians have been recently plagued with negative publicity for using public funds in inappropriate ways. For example, two MP's, who are married own two properties. No problem so far, but wait for it . . . . Both claimed "second-home mortgages", which they are completely allowed to do, but they claimed it for the opposite property to that which their partner was claiming it for. Clever that. Another employed family members to do secretarial work of some sort, while said family members were living in a completely different part of the country from the MP. Another's husband paid for porn and had the tax payer foot the bill. There's more too, but I am getting too annoyed to write about it. .

The downside of all of this, is of course that people are feeling rather uninspired by our politicians. The MPs have broken the public's trust to such an extent that they cannot be allowed within local shops more than two at time for fear of them stealing! This is a huge problem. Recently, the European Elections were held and voter turn out in the UK was an uninspiring 34.7 percent. Furthermore, out of the 27 nations eligible to vote, our percentage of voter turnout was ranked 21st. Ouch. I helped count the votes for the election in Edinburgh and one voters showed his/her displeasure by writing the word "crooks" beside every party on the ballot. They had to be pretty angry because they actually took the time out of their busy day to make it to a polling station and then write "crooks" beside all 13 parties (including one independent candidate) of this election.

Perhaps one of the consequences of the low voter turnout was that BNP (British National Party) scored two seats in European Parliament. I feel the need to point out that neither of these seats came from Scotland, but, nevertheless, their apparent rise in popularity does send a shudder of dread down my spine. They're not exactly "pro-foreigners"! I certainly hope that this is not a sign of things to come.