News from Norway

Not the most thrilling story for most of you, I admit, but they had a general election in the Nordic Paradise on Monday. The ruling (in coalition) Labour Party gained a few seats, the Socialist Left party lost a few. The Communists and Greens have no seats, unfortunately, nor do the Republicans. The Conservatives gained a few and the rightwing Progress Party quite a lot, but the Labour/Socialist Left/Centre Party coalition will maintain power. Hooray!

How did Labour and their allies do it? By promising to spend MORE on the already wonderful Norwegian Welfare State! Meanwhile in Britain, we're going to respond to being bankrupted by naked capitalist bankers by electing the naked capitalist Conservative Party, on a ticket of slashing public services and punishing the blameless poor, to pay for bailing out the bankers. Well done, people of Britain.

We're doomed to a miserable, reactionary, racist, capitalist future

I'm hating the election results. BNP won a seat (I won't be holidaying in Yorkshire/Humber, Lancashire or Stoke), the Greens haven't broken through, and WALES, of all places, has gone Tory: the country which had its language mocked and often banned by the Tories, the birthplace of Labour, the home of trades unionism and Chapel radicalism. I used to be so proud of Wales's previous status as a Tory-free zone. It's ashes now.

Ireland's the only country which has gone left. One amusing detail in Spain though: Alternativa Espanola, the fascist party which has strong ties to the British Conservatives, managed 0.12%. Let's do the same to the Tories next time.

A healthy glow

Just to prove that greens can be (occasionally half-hearted) sexist pigs too, I give you The Environmentals: models posing outside nuclear power plants - sometimes nude but for a radiation detector…