Where are we going?

Off-topic this week, but I feel a change in the air.

 

I’m not generally given to hyperbole, but I feel we in the UK have just had the most significant week that I have ever experienced.

 

Two things, quite unrelated, have happened that I expect to affect the way we think about how we live our lives and how we are governed for a very long time.

 

First, we experienced our first US-style political debate on television in the run-up to the national elections in May. While the content was not particularly enlightening and there was little passion in the debate, something else quite amazing happened. Possibly for the first time ever, our third party, the Liberal Democrats, were given an equal platform alongside the incumbent Labour Party and major challenger the Conservatives. Twitter was a-flutter with pro-Lib Deb comments – hundreds of thousands of tweets were recorded during the debate itself. Not only that, but in instant polls immediately after the debate, and again a few days later, the winner was almost unanimously Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems.

 

Now the Liberal Democrats have always been treated with some humour by the two other parties, safe in the knowledge that because we have a first past the post electoral system, many voters have felt that a vote for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote.

 

Suddenly, that’s not so true. We’re almost certainly heading for a hung parliament, and whoever gets the Lib Dems on side will hold sway in government. So while the two major parties need to sway opinion away from Nick Clegg, his highly respected financial advisor Vince Cable, and the rest of the team, they cannot afford to offend them too deeply.

 

For once, our election could be very interesting. Yet, having said all that, more people watched the first episode of mass entertainment show Britain’s Got Talent that watched the debate. Perhaps next two debates could change all that.

 

And in the second event, our air space has been closed for a week. UK travellers have been stranded all over the world, while overseas visitors are desperate to get home from here. “Overseas” is the key word. Despite our tunnel to France, the UK remains an island, and without air travel, we are more isolated than any other country affected by the Icelandic ash that has brought airports to a standstill.

 

What will be the long-term effect? We’ve already had British Airways and Lufthansa strikes this year, as well as travel disruptions due to our unusually long and bitter winter. Air travel is no longer to be relied upon. The airlines are haemorrhaging cash in a highly competitive industry, and closures and consolidation are on the cards. The lack of noise under the flight paths and the break from pollution have given a new strong card to the homeowners and environmentalists who are arguing hard that we do not need or want the mooted third runway at Heathrow Airport.

 

So the country that emerges from this crisis could be re-thinking its political, business and transport infrastructures, as well as focusing on how to survive and thrive through the economic crisis. 

 

Fascinating.

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