What's more important: The state of the nation, or satisfying the media's appetite?

You may have noticed that the UK has just had a General Election... and that it hasn't quite gone to plan. For those of you unawares, we have a first-past-the-post system meaning that the first party to reach the target number of seats, wins. Now this is great if everyone wants one party over all others, but not if public opinion is split 3 ways. In this instance, none of the 3 parties can win... which is what happened this week. This has left us with a hung parliament. If you want to know more... check the BBC website. This is not what I want to talk about.

My issue is that running the country is an important and difficult job. Realising what the people have asked the politicians to do is another. The last thing that everybody needs, is for the media to demand instant solutions that will do more harm than good... just for their newsbites.

The people who need to decide the fate of everyone's future have been landed an incredibly difficult task on top of not having had any sleep. These people are exhausted, and I for one would prefer that they got their heads down before making any decisions. I don't care that this means that the news channels have to wait. Better no news than catastrophe because people were forced to make the wrong decisions just to sate the media.

Give them a break. Stop all the pressure, silly stories, etc. and let them do what we've asked them to do... create a stable and secure government. For my part... let's hope that Nick Clegg has the courage to not forget his policies and end up in bed with Cameron. 50% voted against the right wing and only 30% for it. The only sensible solution is a left wing Lib-Lab government, and not some hodge-podge left+right wing mess. Surely I'm not the only person who sees that the words Conservative and Liberal just don't go together?

[photo: Macey by Jan Szafranski]