Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
Yet I don't want to believe it's over! Tears welled in my eyes earlier today as the absence of the Election 2010 tab on the BBC website registered in my head. However, that's mainly a reaction against my growing pile of work over there that stubbornly refuses to die. It's been an eventful and thoroughly fascinating election, one I've enjoyed obsessively following. Last Thursday the public spoke; it was a long, chirpy and painfully confused wail of utter confusion that lead to the much feared, welcomed and confusing mother of all hung parliaments. Yay! It's here, people thought. Nobody had won, ha! Screw you, broken political system! Then the glee balloon popped as reality prickled. One thought weighed down on people's minds to varying degrees: 'Oh, shit! Now what?'
The game was afoot. The drawn out Machiavellian political game of secrecy, deceit, negotiation and drama. We waited and waited and did even more waiting while we waited. The pundits started throwing theories around; the reporters chased certain politicians begging for answers; the boys and girls in the City cried with disgruntled impatience; the markets threatened to go ballistic; and Lord Mandelson had lost his smile. I was loathe to leave my laptop to pander to that thing known as real life in case I missed a new development. Clegg was the 'Kingmaker'. He had the power. Stuff was happening behind the scenes and the clock was ticking...
I hate facebook. I had returned from the real world to find friends joining a 'Gordon Brown- You shall be missed' page. What?! Gordo's died in a freak accident remotely connected to Cameron? No, he resigned. I sadly missed his leaving speech, which I was told was excellent. Alas, my facebook woes did not end there. There was the David Cameron's House Party event that I was sent along with the many ConDem jokes. Facebook was suddenly breaking my news to me. Is that the new direction it's headed in? It's already invaded Spotify, but I've gone off on a tangent now.
Luckily, I did manage to catch the Cameron and Clegg show, 'love-in', or more formally Prime-Ministerial News Conference yesterday without Facebook's interference. There's something so much more profound about BBC commentators patiently repeating important observations about birdsong, sunshine and the two lecterns 'in the garden' of Downing Street because you, viewer, cannot be trusted to pick this up from the video feed without help. You stupid sod! An American-style press conference, which was 'extraordinary' because one could hear birdsong in a rose garden on a sunny day. Intriguing, now excuse me while I go vomit. I wonder whether both men will morph into a single entity one day in their time in power. Let's call this enterprising being Clemeron. A bright young man who has nerve and a thirst for power, change and fairness. People of Britain, behold this 'new politics', one where the new daring breed of politicians would 'work together' fairly in taking Britain to a new direction, which ensures that together new things in politics work. This would amount to change. Welcome to the Big Society - we're all in this together!
My news feed tells me I won't be running out of political stories to distract me just yet. Exciting times! I'd like to leave you with some interesting stats I've picked up:
1. Cameron (six months younger than Blair was in 1997) is the youngest prime minister since 1812. He is also the first Old Etonian to hold the office since the early 1960s.
2. 59% of the cabinet were privately educated and 69% went to Oxbridge.
3. 23 out of 30 Libservative Cabinet ministers are millionaires.
4. Women make up 20% of the cabinet.
5. This is the first cabinet with no openly gay members for 13 years.
6. Baroness Warsi is the only non-white cabinet member.
7. Theresa May is expected to combine the job of Home Secretary with the Women and Equality Minister's post. Her voting record stands as follows: voted against the repeal of Section 28 (1998), against gay couples jointly adopting children (2001 and 2002) and equalising the age of consent (1998).
Now, some miscellaneous shiz:
1. From the Financial Times: "Great swathes of the Treasury website have been taken down with the arrival of George Osborne. This picture will not be very reassuring to Britain’s PFI industry."
2. Members of the cabinet have been banned from having mobile phones and Blackberrys with them during meetings.
3. There has been a surge in Labour Party membership since the close of the polls with over 10, 000 people joining. Yesterday's Cameron-Clegg (Clemeron) joint press conference saw 4,211 people join Labour. (The Guardian) With student membership only being £1, I hear now is an interesting time to join the Labour Party. A leadership battle is nigh, if that's any incentive.
An end to old politics? Hear, hear! Bring on the ConDemnation (ha!). And so, we breathe and carry on knowing only one thing: it's the end of the beginning of an interesting ride. Ahoy, distractions galore!
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