Sunday, May 08, 2005
23 Years Ago Today . . .
Arguably the greatest Grand Prix driver ever, certainly the most charismatic, Gilles Villeneuve was killed in qualifying at Zolder for the Belgian Grand Prix. What a shame that his son Jacques had to retire in today's Spanish Grand Prix. In 1984 I went to Zolder for a round of the ETCC (European Touring Car Championship) and hated it. It will always be the circuit where Gilles died, and I couldn't wait to get away.
Election Result
Living in the Windsor constituency, there was never going to be anything other than a resounding Conservative victory. A couple of Mondays ago I attended the local church where all six candidates were facing questions from the local population, including some sixth-formers from Eton. It was all a bit chaotic, if truth be told, with some candidates waffling on, and being allowed to waffle on by a useless chairman. Things came to a head a few minutes before the sixth-formers mini bus was due to leave. They hadn't got on to education yet, and one of the (I assume) lecturers took matters into his own hands and started to get quite forceful.
I was quite impressed with Derek Wall, the Green party candidate, who came across as an articulate and passionate candidiate. Adam Afriyie and Mark Muller were typical Tory and Labour politicians, Antony Wood the LibDem candidate was too much of a showman for me, wandering off into the audience at one point to try and get in touch with the local voters. The remaining two candidates were a pair of twats. One independant, Peter Hooper who has been seen in the constituency with a sheep on his shoulder, and even got mentioned on Capital FM's breakfast show. His sheep was a symbol for his main cause - Stop Heathrow's Endless Expansion Programme. The remaining candidate, UKIP's David Black was an apologist who stated that the only reason he was standing was that the main political parties were not focussed enough on the UK. He really didn't have the passion required to fire any kind of enthusiasm, and I was horrified to see that he polled more votes than the Green party candidate. See the full result here. Windsor now has the Conservative's first black MP, some 20 years after the labour party - not something that they should be particularly proud of.
I was quite impressed with Derek Wall, the Green party candidate, who came across as an articulate and passionate candidiate. Adam Afriyie and Mark Muller were typical Tory and Labour politicians, Antony Wood the LibDem candidate was too much of a showman for me, wandering off into the audience at one point to try and get in touch with the local voters. The remaining two candidates were a pair of twats. One independant, Peter Hooper who has been seen in the constituency with a sheep on his shoulder, and even got mentioned on Capital FM's breakfast show. His sheep was a symbol for his main cause - Stop Heathrow's Endless Expansion Programme. The remaining candidate, UKIP's David Black was an apologist who stated that the only reason he was standing was that the main political parties were not focussed enough on the UK. He really didn't have the passion required to fire any kind of enthusiasm, and I was horrified to see that he polled more votes than the Green party candidate. See the full result here. Windsor now has the Conservative's first black MP, some 20 years after the labour party - not something that they should be particularly proud of.
