Britain’s Worst Kept Secret 2010

The date of Britain’s next General Election was confirmed today: we will be voting for our new Parliamentary representatives on May 6th 2010. This is, of course, the worst kept secret this decade; many of us have known that today would be the day Brown would drive to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen for permission to dissolve Parliament.

Whilst my plan for the day had been to sit in the public gallery of the Houses of Commons to hear the second reading of the Digital Economy Bill, which I’ve been working on a campaign against for the last four months, it was actually my first day in a new job as a campaigns intern for the Islington Liberal Democrats, so I spent the day at their headquarters in North London, helping prepare campaign materials for the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in Islington South, Bridget Fox. The office was buzzing, but the most exciting thing of the day for me came after work (and I’m not talking about the Chilango’s burrito I picked up on the way home…).

This evening, I signed a big pile of forms for the Greenwich Borough Liberal Democrats, and I will soon be a candidate in next month’s local council election myself.

I’m reminded of when I first announced that I’d been elected onto the Union Council at university, and someone told me “when you’re an MP, I’ll say I’ll knew you when…” and I laughed and said I’d never get that ingrained in politics. I suppose it never quite works like you plan, does it?