When a Secretary of State can meme herself, you know she's a keeper

She might not be a friend of Iran, but Hilary Clinton sure knows what to do when she's being memed, with the old adage, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Make no mistake, when a meme of Clinton start pinging across the tumblrs and twitters there's just no way of stopping it.

But spoofs of the Secretary texting with her sunnies on and being mocked for her 'scrunchie' wearing apparently had the politician clutching for her sides, not clutching for her lawyers.

They say Obama's twitter account won him the election, and they might not be far off the mark.

For nearly a generation we, the underlings, thought we owned the web. The social side of it, anyway.

Our elders and more responsibles didn’t know about things like blogs, tweets, memes, and so away we went, safe in the knowledge we had them on a platform they didn’t understand.

So refreshing is it, then, when one of the highers join us down here. Not just tweeting, but genuinely getting involved.

When a Secretary of State can actually meme herself, well, you know she's a keeper. Because she's just proven she knows where we are, what makes us tick.

It's connecting with the people that counts these days, not the policies you carry, just look at our Dave.

With a snazzy photoshopped campaign poster, and promise of hugging a hoody, we voted in (not me, personally, I hasten to add...) the most ruthless Prime Minister in terms of public service slashing my generation has ever seen.

And he had us at 'mydavidcameron'.

Clegg answers 'two people'

Back in the South East I bumped into a very unfortunate interview with our Deputy Dawg, Cleggery.

Reading back to last year's Leaders' Debate I was impressed by a first charismatic performance by this man.

Such that in considering the Blue/Yellow swing in my humble part of Cornwall I took a deep breath and laid my hopes firmly at his feet.

Service cut after service cut after education cut later I have to say I'm a little pissed. To say the least.

Cleggery was shown two short clips of South Easterners saying they felt their Lib Dem vote had been in vain, for nothing, worthless, and that they would never vote for him again.

Cleggery's response? 'Well, that's just two people.'

Wake up Nick, and smell the disenchantment.

A dark day for the 'Dems

So it seems Cornwall did vote after all. I'd rather have lost to a 40% turnout than to a 12% turnout, so I'm happy that democracy has been done.

69.6% voted no to AV, 30.4% yes.

The Lib Dems elsewhere have taken a battering in the local elections. The Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott has stepped down saying he's taking responsibility for a 'disastrous' result for his party.

Pressed on whether Clegg should do the same, Scott replied that he thinks Cleggy-boy does take responsibility for the Liberal bullet-to-the-stomach. Funny then, that the news is full of Tory put-downs - Lib Dems accusing their parliament lovers of being 'tribal'.

What is a political party if not a tribe? Is it possible that the Lib Dems threw their lot in with the wrong team 12 long months ago? That policy after policy has been dictated by the right wing, when so much of the country voted middle-left or left?

Time for the yellows to now accept that with the rejection of an alternative vote, this is the closest they will come to power for another long generation.

Make hay while you can still feel the warmth of the sun, Cleggy-boy. For tomorrow might just see the dark clouds return.

#yestoAV if we can #getoutofbed

Voting felt a little strange this morning.

Not least because it was before nine and I was in a church hall. Not least because I was in a church hall at all. But because I was the only one.

Three helpful referendum assistants (I'm sure that's not their formal job title) jumped to tend to my every need.

One to take my postal invite, the other to cross of my name (very neatly) from a master list, the other to, I don't know, check pencils are sharpened well enough? He lingered, anyhoo.

Where was everyone else? Surely my Newquay town peers care about the future of our vote? Don't they?

With Cornwall's local elections put back until 2013, giving our new Unitary Council a fun-packed four-year term in office, perhaps people just weren't inclined to get out of bed to exercise democracy.

What a shame as it’s their very democracy at stake.

If there wasn't already enough reason to vote #yestoAV, as it's known on Twitter, this was the Mail's front page today:

Following an earlier tweet saying Hitler would have got into power 10 years earlier under FPTP, West Briton reporter Anthony Bonnici tweeted "Now really concerned no matter what voting system I pick the Nazis will get into power sooner or later".

Is all lost under Red Ed?

I got a text while sunning myself in Portugal at end of last month. It was from my boss, and it read, simply "Ed- 1, Dave - 0". It took me just a moment or two until I realised what he was telling me. Red Ed had snatched victory from under his brother's nose.

On my return I found out it was even more serious than that. Ed won on the back of the trade union vote - allowed a bigger proportion of the vote than individual members of the Labour party.
Pic c/o PA

While the country reels from quick, harsh public sector cuts from the Tories (I'm not even going to mention the Libs as they are now Tory in my eyes) I've been reliably informed the speed and severity of the cuts is no accident. It means services will be irreparable even into the next term, so Labour's chance of snatching victory and then quickly mending our battered country is even slimmer.

And who's going to vote for Red Ed? Are enough people die-hard liberals to vote for him? Wasn't Dave our chance of easing back into Labour in an un-frightening, charismatic manner?

I think, terrifyingly, all might be lost.

The day I met Dave

We're not talking Dave of the Cam, although to give him his dues he has arrived on Cornish soil a couple of times. I wouldn't know what to say to him though, would I?

Would you Adam and Eve it, my #secretcrush David Miliband arrived in Truro last week, looking relaxed in a local pub as he met Labour member, befuddled diners and local digital editors who were very pleased they managed to put some mascara on that morning.

Firstly let's take a moment or two to look back on the last Labour government and how much Cornwall featured on their radar. Now what was his name again? Oh yes, Blair. No, he never came down. Gordon did though. Once.

Picture by Jonathan Jacobs. That's my Concentrating Face by the way...

Anyway, apparently keen to win Cornish Labourites who've been stung after a tactical vote to the yellow in order not to let the blues in (and look where that got me, I mean us), he was (rightly) shocked at the Lib-Con government’s plans to reject European Convergence funding, the majority of which would have benefited Cornwall.


Dave also told me he didn't think coalition governments would be the Way Of The Future, should there be a majority vote at election. He's hoping for a quick and decisive swing back to Labour in the next election. Aren't we all.

UPDATE: I stand duly corrected by @penzancemike and @cernyw - Mr Blair it seems DID come to Cornwall - the proof is in the hair do - I mean pictures...

Our Mo - tumour and all

Utterly absorbing, powerful, emotional and all-consuming - the two-hour-topping drama of Mo Mowlam’s life from Labour’s first winning election until her death had me in fits of giggles, uncomfortable silences and pouring tears.

I was torn by how aghast I was at a clearly testosterone fuelled Government, and how inspired I was to change the world no matter what challenges lie in front of one – be them living and thriving in a man’s world, or battling cancer.

I suppose I can boast living in these shoes to some small extent, being both a Digital Editor (not a whole lot of women there) and having survived a far less threatening cervical cancer in my early 20s. My ‘change the world’ goal has, I’m afraid to report, yet to materialise.

Julie Walters, whom I already knew to be at her worst thoroughly watchable, blew me away with an unapologetic portrayal of a woman who both embodied the female in politics at her thunderous best, and one who was so masculine as to all at once join and threaten her alpha male colleagues – pissing with the cubicle door open, sitting with her legs wide apart, and swearing like a builder after 5 pints of larger. It appalled and excited me all at once.

I was devastated at Mowlam’s fury as she nearer her death that the ‘larger than life Mo that everyone loved’ might not have been ‘her’ at all, but the work of the tumour which was already pressing into her frontal lobe and altering her behaviour.

Mo was still our Mo – tumour and all. She was a woman of courage, passion and confidence. I can only hope that by the time I turn my toes up, I could have achieved even half of what she managed.