It seems as though everything on the political blogosphere is about the US election race. While it is of course apparent to any old fool that the outcome of the election in a years time is important for the state of global politics, I personally think there are more pressing matter that also deserve some light of day. Futilely, perhaps, I would much prefer to read some more learned opinion about the situations brewing in Pakistan and Kenya than the media food that is largely irrelevant until at least the beginning of February. In fact I would normally be annoyed if we merely centred on the largely irrelevant political point scoring of the UK's national parties such as Cameron's ever so slightly altered Labour policies or Gordon Brown's desire for more screening for all rather than these crisis's in Middle East and Africa (Darfur is more than a lost cause for debate in the public domain now that the allure of saving that part of the world has worn off), however what really confuses me is that even important stories such as the ministers pay rise issue, or a recent report that Labour are failing the very people that they are supposed to be strongest at supporting are getting no insight right now.

I don't intend to go too deeply in to this all, I am not at all knowledgeable enough about the Kenyan and Pakistan situations to offer more than personal opinion based on what I've read in the last week or so, but the fact there is nothing much to read other than what the mainstream media is offering here in the UK makes keeping oneself informed a much harder task.

On the Kenyan issue, we've had a real tragedy unfold before us and seemingly because of a questionable election process and the desire for power being strong between rival factions in the country. The whole situation is an amazing example of why it is so important for a country to hold free, fair and transparent elections. While in places like Kenya such disrespect for the democratic process and the people taking part lands them in violent turmoil, we can take some lessons and parity in how swathes of this country can feel entirely disenfranchised with national politics when national opinion and desire doesn't make an impact on who really runs the country and on what policies are created.

As for Pakistan, perhaps it is just because of the importance of the country in the "fight against terror" but the issue of the national government seemingly trying to cover-up an assassination. It is absolutely one thing for any party to be able to get close enough to kill a political candidate for an upcoming election, but it's quite another for the government to act as anything else has happened other than reality. It casts huge questions over the moral ability of the Pakistani government, it even casts aspersions over just how complicit they were in the action...though maybe that is a little too tin foil hatted in its thinking. Either way the lack of any kind of questioning from the political community and our elected representatives makes me almost unnerved, especially while our own Prime Minister is offering to interfere in the afformentioned sticky situation in Kenya.

I really do care about the presidential candidates and who ends up running after February for the Elections next Winter, but I also care about the astounding abandonment and sabotage of democracy around the world and what that means for us as a country, what we are doing and not doing about it all, and about very pressing albeit smaller issues that are still very important. One blogger on Liberal Conspiracy has noted that the last seven (now eight?) articles have been about the Primaries in the US on their site and I'd fashion an opinion that it is unlikely to be dissimilar on other blogging lists, and that very same blogger details how it is all about momentum...political moments that are pushed by the press and that we online take and talk about until the moment takes on a life of it's own and is built up to higher than it should, potentially, be.

Let's not pretend that our government does not know this, and that the leader of the opposition doesn't either. A hush on almost all issues by Labour has meant a burying of the big problems that ended 2007 such as the data losses and abandonment of arbitration processes for police pay, while Cameron is trying to make the NHS and benefits the big issue of 2008 because he feels that it is an area the Tories can make ground on in the coming months. Perhaps it is the duty of people blogging online to not so much play to this and to solely follow the big trends, but to always also be probing the unspoken issues sliding surreptitiously below the mainstream radar, and to find debate in issues others want to appear already closed.

That all said, happy New Year