Election night drinking game

The campaigning is over. (Thank Cthulhu for that.) If you have a vote, please use it, but I'd be grateful if it is not for UKIP.

The next parliament promises to be more fractured, and fractious, than any in living memory. Before then, we have an eventful night ahead. I'll be on Twitter from about 10 pm as the results come in. I have ample supplies of beer and popcorn, and I'll try not to startle the cats by shouting at the television.

Dexter and Belle are eager to see who will be Prime Minister what's for dinner.

I've composed a drinking game to get us through the night. It's simple and not especially partisan. Play with the beverage of your choice: Wine, beer, tea, Ardbeg, lemonade, or whatever. I won't judge.

Bringers of Chaos 3: We have met the enemy and he is us

In Part 1 and Part 2, I looked at reasons not to panic over the rise of the SNP. The UK political classes seem determined to panic anyway.

Both Labour and Conservatives talk as if the SNP are a new Jacobite rebellion, marching south to seize power at the point of a claymore. They have indulged in hysteria for the sake of short-term partisan advantage. The consequences could be profound.

The SNP's method of taking power. Note the absence of guns, bombs and bayonets.
Source: Daily Telegraph

Bringers of Chaos 2: Keep calm and look at Canada

(Part 1 of this series looked at reactions to the SNP's likely victory in the general election, and reasons why it will not be as cataclysmic as many believe.)

The rise of the SNP may be unprecedented in the UK; but as luck would have it, there is a recent parallel from across the Atlantic. We have seen what happens in a British-style parliamentary democracy, when a left-wing nationalist party wins a large proportion of seats.

I am referring to the Bloc Québecois, from the French-speaking province of Québec in Canada.

Flags of Québec and Canada.

Cute Cat Friday 2015-05-01: Dexter

Casting a long shadow.

Bringers of Chaos 1: Reality Check

The UK political classes claim an SNP victory in the general election would have cataclysmic results.

There are not many points of agreement between the left-wing Scottish nationalist Craig Murray, and the Conservative politician Boris Johnson. However they share a fondness for lurid rhetoric, and a belief in the awesome power of the SNP:

Murray:

A sweeping SNP victory on May 7 is considered enough of a threat to the United Kingdom for the security services to use up some assets. [...] The still bigger worry is that, as the security services get increasingly desperate as polling day approaches, they will manufacture a false flag incident in which people deliberately get hurt.

Johnson:

You wouldn’t get Herod to run a baby farm, would you? [...] [The SNP] want to end Britain, to decapitate Britannia, to cause a constitutional upheaval that would gravely weaken this country, a rupture that has provoked horror in Britain’s friends around the world – and a silent chuckle among those who do not wish us quite so well.

(Incidentally, what the hell is a baby farm? Does Johnson not know where babies come from?)

Newly elected SNP representatives arriving at Westminster.

Spray Paint in Aberdeen

Earlier this month, someone vandalised the Conservative and Labour party offices in Aberdeen. I assumed it was the work of a random bampot with nothing better to do on a Friday night, but Craig Murray has a more outré theory.

Graffiti on the Conservative Party office. Source: BBC News

Cute Cat Friday 2014-04-24: Belle

Surveying the garden from on high.