Those of us who have been campaigning for electoral reform over the last few days can see the beginning of it today. Proportional representation will see a future of no one party having a majority of seats. Therefore if reform is what we really want, then two parties working together despite political differences is a start of this.

Do I trust Cameron and Clegg? Not yet, but I’m going to let them prove this can be done and done well. Do I think the Lib Dems have given in to the Tories? No.

The advantage of this agreement is that there should be real debate over policies. Not the slanging matches between the party in power and the opposition, where the government get their own way more often than not. We’ll hopefully see talks that could see the best bits from each party coming through.

My biggest fear is the negative impact of the media that could kill any possibility that this will work. Having been glued to the BBC for the past few days I have seen a lot of negativity towards everything going on. The encouragement that people should conclude they have been betrayed whatever their party alliance. The suggestion that the Lib Dems have given up all their policies, which is certainly not the case. I am not against questions being asked and decisions being scrutinised, it is essential this happens. But the new government has to be given a chance to work. Not least because we need stability to get out of the economic mess we’re in at the moment.

Of course there is going to be plenty thrown up in terms of differences. Arguments that have happened in the past will be brought up again and again. But isn’t that the politics we want to get away from? We seem to want politicians to work together across party divides, yet few are willing to believe that it is possible. People complain about our political systems, the amount of time wasted on party arguments rather than on working for the country, and now we’re looking at a system that could reduce point scoring and increase productivity.

Well we have an opportunity for change. We need to start asking ourselves what we really do want? You can’t moan about the political system as it is, demand change, and then bitch when a possible new way of working comes along. Can you honestly tell me that anyone would have been 100% happy with any of the options on the table?

The new system won’t be perfect or easy. There will be problems, mistakes and plenty to learn as they go along. But there are problems, mistakes and plenty to learn in every single government we have had. There will be arguments where each party has a completely opposite stance on an issue, but there this can happen within parties. We’ve seen division within Labour in the run up to this election. I’m sure parts of the media will shortly be dusting off their rose tinted glasses and proclaiming all was well with majority governments. This can work if Cameron and Clegg can learn to trust each other, if their parties can learn to trust their leaders, and if people really want to make it work.

It is possible to have different views and be working towards the same goals. If this does last the full five years I hope at the next General Election we see a new system of voting. I hope we see election campaigns based on strengths of candidates, not weaknesses of their opposition. One based less on party politics and more about what is best for the UK. I hope we see a full coalition in 2015 that involves Conservative, Lib Dems and Labour.

I suggest before making your own judgement that you read through the initial Coalition Agreement document either at the Lib Dems website or Conservative website (it’s less than six pages long and fairly easy to get through)

For me the agreement addresses many points I’d considered and blogged about, though other areas lack any real information so far…
Education – Looks like a move towards giving some control back to schools while still being accountable
Crime – no specifics
Environment (Climate Change) – Heathrow third runway plans scrapped and a number of other measures to cut our emissions
Economy - Introduction of a banking levy and also changes to tax that benefit the lowest earners.
Health/NHS – Protection of and investment in the NHS
Welfare -  will be interested to see what the policies are about unemployment, sounds like a reduction in bureaucracy for welfare to work programmes.
Immigration – I’ll be interested to see how the caps on immigration from outside the UK are applied. There are plenty of other countries to look to for examples and advice, so I hope we learn from their successes and mistakes.
Democracy – Proposals by the end of the year on proportional representation, though it seems skewed to AV. Also a welcome reform to party funding.
War - No promises on Iraq or Afghanistan other than mentioned in Cameron and Cleggs press conference
Europe – Sounds like we’re going to limit the powers we give to Europe while still maintaining beneficial relationships.

In addition the parties have agreed to disagree on Nuclear Power and tax allowances for married couples, showing that where they can’t find common ground in some areas doesn’t mean they can’t work together in others.

Six pages isn’t nearly enough to show how it will all unfold, but to me it sounds like we will be getting the best of the Lib Dem policies and losing the worst of the Tory policies. I want this government to succeed, and to start seeing a new political approach based on policies not parties.

The day after the election was announced I booked the 7^th May off work in the hope that I might manage to keep my eyes open through the night through to the announcement of the result. Considering I’m usually jumping with joy if I keep going until midnight these days it is not going to be an easy task, I just hope the adrenaline sees me through. My aim is to still be awake in 24 hours time.

I’ve made quite a controversial decision myself. Between 9pm and 1am I’m thinking of watching the Channel 4 Alternative Election Night. I love the BBC, I really do, but if I’m going to try and see this through the night then kicking off with comedy and being able to get annoyed whenever Jimmy Carr is totally inappropriate might just get me through the tiredness barrier. There’s plenty of time for me to head back over to the BBC and catch up with David Dimbleby and his swingometer later.

Yesterday Labour (in the form of David Milliband) and Nick Clegg descended on Durham. Not surprisingly as it’s a target seat for the Lib Dems. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to hot foot it over to Palace Green and meet my second party leader in a week, as I’ve already postal voted I thought that might be a bit unnecessary. I did watch the 20 minute Q&A session with Durham students on the BBC live coverage of the General Election.

I’m getting very excited about the way today will unfold, but also nervous. Once we hit 10pm there is nothing to do but enjoy the night as the results role in. I’m hoping the Lib Dems get the most votes, purely because I’m up for the campaign to change the voting system. Electoral reform is top of my list for letters to write to my MP, old or new, come Friday morning. However if my worst nightmare unfolds and the Tory’s get a majority I am almost certain I will cry, and not just because it means being faced with the smug, creepy and disturbing looks of Cameron and Osbourne.

I understand the argument that one term of Conservative government making the deep cuts that are needed could ensure we don’t see any more of them for two or three terms after, but there is not just the economy to think of. I can guarantee they won’t address any of the environmental changes needed to stop climate change reaching the tipping point where it spirals out of our control, because in a matter of decades the economy would be the least of our worries.

I’d rather have a Labour win or Lab/Lib coalition that tries to extract more from the rich to stop the economic impact being so great on the poor. I’d hope both of them will stick to their promises to pursue something along the lines of the Robin Hood Tax which would address economy, poverty and the environment. The Tories are scarily devoid of targets, costs and dates. I definitely think the motto when voting should be “better the devil you know” (and now I want to burst into a Kylie song and dance!)

I will be playing ‘spot the result’ with the previous places I’ve lived to keep me awake, I just hope they don’t all declare too early. There are battles in Bournemouth West (a Lib Dem bid for a Tory seat where the MP has retired) and Durham (Labour and Lib Dem candidates who have shown their skill in bitching about each other and little else). My other previous homes of Southport (Lib Dem), Streatham (Labour) and Mitcham & Morden (Labour) look unlikely to throw up any surprises.

I’m hoping to come up with a few more ideas to keep me entertained and alert through the night. Candidate cocktails (any excuse!) or perhaps just playing on Downing Street Fighter (with Gillian Duffy bonus round).  I may even have to try and pen a 3am blog if I’m still awake… I apologise in advance!

The biggest question I’ve been asking myself is what do I care about? WWID (‘What Would I Do?’ as opposed to WWMD) if I was the PM? And which party fits best with that?

Sounds straightforward, but then there’s the local element. What if the party I want to win nationally happens to have a mediocre candidate in my area? Do I put national politics before local politics hoping that if the candidate wins they will step up to the mark? Or do I go with local politics even though I don’t agree with quite a bit of their national manifesto?

I have far too many questions in my head that realistically aren’t going to be answered by the time the final leader’s debate is over tomorrow night.

Simply (and I could write a blog post or two on all of these) I’ve outlined the things I care about most:

Education: Overhaul the current bureaucracy, targets and form filling for teachers. Move away from teaching children how to pass exams and give teachers more freedom over how they teach. Stop obsessing over getting 50% into university and take a much broader approach encompassing vocational and academic learning from 16.

Crime: Greater use of Restorative Justice, especially amongst young offenders and petty criminals to reduce reoffending, decrease the risk of them becoming career criminals, rehabilitate them to society. Most importantly this approach also helps the victims recover from the crime, something our current justice system doesn’t address.

Climate Change: No third runway at Heathrow. Reduction in emissions and a focus on increasing awareness of the realities of climate change in our life time, including the measures needed before the next General Election.

Economy: Robin Hood Tax. Make the banks responsible for rectifying the economic mess we are in and take the pressure off cuts in our national services.

Health/NHS: Keep the NHS. I accept money is tight but there has to be a way to pay our NHS nurses more. They do an amazing job and deserve more recognition.

Welfare: Families should be supported regardless of whether they are single parent, gay or straight, unmarried or married. We need to continue to support those who are trying to find work. There needs to be more focus on volunteering for those unemployed for more than a few months. The state should support those genuinely unable to work. There needs to be a tougher approach to those who are unemployed long term for no good reason and have no intention of finding work.

Immigration: We do need to tighten up immigration laws, but most definitely not stop it. There needs to be a sensible approach that benefits everyone, an improvement in the way it is managed. The UK is a brilliant multicultural society and that should be celebrated.

Democracy: Introduction of proportional representation in voting.

War: I just don’t know. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should have never happened, but they have and we’ve contributed to the problems both those countries are now facing. I think it is right to reduce our troops and let those countries do what they need to do, but at the same time we probably owe them some support to do that.

Europe: We should stay a part of the EU. Priorities to work together on climate change and the economic crisis. I’m undecided on how much say the EU should have on our day-to-day business.

And one final thing (I’m not sure which point it comes under) if David Cameron tries to destroy the BBC he’ll have to get past me first!!!

Though I’m excited about the political process of an election, I’m also saddened by the current state of politics. I think that the few fantastic MPs we have in this country are overshadowed by the scandals of the many. I hate that the general tone of discussion about the election is about voting for the best of a bad lot. More than ever it makes me want to get involved and make a difference. There has to be plenty more people like me who are interested in building a democracy that we can be proud of.

Most people believe that this is just the way it is. Politics will never change. But I really think it can. After this election I hope that I can get involved, and find other people who want to prove that politics can be about representing our communities and our country. Politicians need to be more accountable to those they represent. I also believe that parties can, and should, work together. The entire system needs to be presented simply so people understand what affects them, why they should vote and how they can create change themselves. MPs can’t do everything, but if they work with their communities they can achieve so much. I know there are MPs who already work in this way, I just think that it needs to become the rule, rather than the exception.

I promise I will try not to bore you with election talk for the entire month! There’s just a couple of other things…

• If you are really struggling to decide who to vote for Vote for Policies is a brilliant website that helps you to understand which parties represent your views. http://voteforpolicies.org.uk
• If you’re not registered to vote you need to do it by the 20 April. It’s easily done by visiting The Electoral Commission (they also tell you how to find out if you’re already registered). Please don’t waste your vote. A low turn out gives parties like the BNP a bigger say. If you don’t vote you might as well be voting for the people you really don’t want in government. It’s better to vote for a party you vaguely agree with than no one at all. http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/
• Of course the wonderful BBC make following the election easy (if the Conservative party win they will have a fight on their hands, I’m not letting anyone destroy the BBC… I digress!) For those of you confused about it all there’s a whole section for first time voters and a really good FAQ section.

I’ve had a rather wonderful Christmas Eve. Firstly I recieved the Kreativ Blogger Award from Katie McCullough (I’ll follow up with a post on it after Christmas). Secondly I was made up to hear my friend proposed to my other friend! They met at my Birthday party two and a half years ago and though we knew that he’d pop the question sooner or later it’s no less exciting!!! I am so happy for them, and looking forward to the wedding planning ahead! They live over in Sydney at the moment so it’ll be a while until I get to give them hugs in person, and admire her Tiffany engagement ring!

Today’s ‘Five…‘ has a rather predictable Christmas theme to share with you the wonders of my Christmas Day!

1. Christmas Eve
We have a Christmas Eve tradition that has evolved over the years but always involves dinner at one of mum & dad’s best friends. The great thing is that it means I’m guaranteed to get to see my friend, their daughter, Lucy every Christmas Eve and my friend Dave too (they got married this year – another couple who met through me, I have a better success rate than match.com!!!) There’s always lovely food, conversation and a silly game or two, usually including an epic quiz of the year. This year I invested in Trivial Pursuit, which provided the necessary levels of discussion, giggling and completely wrong answers! It was ‘juveniles’ vs ‘oldies’ and we won! This is followed by my yearly topping up of Catholic guilt at midnight mass, the carols from 11.30pm are lovely though.

Also in the past few years from lunchtime onwards I keep my nearest and dearest updated on Santa’s progress by following the NORAD Santa Tracker

2. Christmas Morning
There has always been a rule in our house that you have to eat breakfast before presents are opened, though my first present was always a box of Coco Pops (I had to have sensible cereals throughout the rest of the year!). Now we’re older it has got later as we wait until my sister and niece arrive. Nothing in the way of present opening commences prior to 11am, which makes it perfect timing for Bucks Fizz & Mince Pies too! This is the Thornber household so of course there is order in the chaos!

3. Top of the Pops
I’m so glad TOTP still exists in Christmas form. TV is pretty much ignore until 2pm as I blast Christmas music through the house, but TOTP is a good transistion from music to TV… and these days lets me know exactly how out of touch I am with the charts. I just hope I don’t say “Who?” too often!

4. Christmas Dinner
There’s only five of us so of course we cook enough to feed ten. I say ‘we’ I actually mean Mum & Dad. The weekly Sunday Roast is always Dad’s domain so of course with both parents in the kitchen there is usually at least one argument that is hilarious for the onlooker. Sis and I pitch in by setting the table and selecting the wine, and of course by demolishing the fantastic food and saying a big “Thank you!” This year Mum has decided we won’t pretend it will be on the table for lunchtime and deliberately plan for it to be in the region of 3-4pm… I think this is a dangerous move and hope to be proved wrong and eating before 7pm! As long as there are pigs in blankets and cranberry sauce all will be okay!

5. Christmas Cocktails
As the day draws to a close somewhere around ‘The Royle Family’ and ‘Gavin & Stacey’ I will raid the alcohol cupboard (my fantastic father managed to procure some half price Absolut Vodka!) and make a wonderful cocktail for my sister and I as we hurtle towards Boxing Day. This year I’m thinking Cosmopolitans to start followed by something involving Baileys and Amaretto… and hopefully minus a hangover in the morning!

Before you go I have one final treat for you… most people will have had the chance to see their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews in the nativity over the past few weeks. Unfortunately I missed seeing my Dad in his, but I do have a photograph of the event (thanks to southport.gb.com) – he’s the shepherd on the right and I have to say I am very proud!

Top 5 Books of 2009
My literary highlight of the year was meeting David Nicholls and Nick Hornby during the Durham Book Festival and telling David that he’d made me cry!
1. One Day by David Nicholls
2. Goodnight Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson
3. Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson
4. The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
5. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything by Elizabeth Gilbert

Top 5 Films of 2009
I’m counting this as films I saw for the first time this year even if they were released earlier. I’ve missed out on lots of cinema releases as Gala Durham is so small it has a blink and you’ll miss it approach to showing films!
1. UP
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Avatar
4. Night At The Museum 2: Battle Of The Smithsonian
5. Hellboy/Hellboy 2 – The Golden Army

Top 5 TV Programmes of 2009
Another fantastic year for the Beeb. As the number of channels grow I’m starting to think the BBC are the only place committed to real quality and begrudging my licence fee less and less each year. I could have easily listed ten things on the BBC I’ve enjoyed this year, but I’ll limit it to four…
1. Strictly Come Dancing
2. Torchwood (Children of Earth)
3. Doctor Who
4. Have I Got News For You
5. Scrubs

Top 5 Songs of 2009
It’s at this point I note that Kylie has been so busy touring in the states etc this year she hasn’t actually released a single – though she did release ‘Live in New York‘ earlier this month.
1. I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas
2. Number 1 – Tinchy Strider feat. N-Dubz
3. Funhouse – P!nk
4. The Fear – Lily Allen
5. Up All Night – Take That

As I had to come up with a fifth category I decided to finish with Top 5 Celebrities of 2009…

1. David Tennant for being the most entertaining man in 2009 for Doctor Who, Hamlet and everything else
2. Rihanna for getting out of a situation of domestic violence and having the guts to talk about it in the news
3. Eddie Izzard for running 43 marathons in 51 days for Sports Relief (and also for making me laugh lots when I went to see ‘Stripped‘)
4. Chris Hollins for proving in Strictly that if you put your heart & soul into something, and keep at it, you can improve and succeed
5. Gary Barlow for deciding it was a good idea to get a bunch of celebrities to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and as a result raising £3.4million for Comic Relief

It was always going to be a fantastic night as it’s the Strictly Come Dancing final. I’m just a bit obsessed with Strictly! In week one I wanted Chris to be out as early as possible, I wouldn’t have believed it if you would have told me I’d be voting for him multiple times in the final. Chris went from novice to being an amazing dancer. This past month Team Cola (as Chris & Ola are known) have given me goosebumps every week without fail, and their Charleston is easily my favourite dance of the series.

Once Strictly had finished I could transfer my attention to the snow. We had a flurry/blizzard earlier and now have well over a foot of snow. It’s soft fluffy snow and so pretty. Unfortunately not great for making snowmen as it just falls apart. As it was after 10pm I had no one to call on for a snow ball fight so I decided to go on a wander by myself. I was so overwhelmed by the snow that I didn’t realise I was cold at all until I returned to my warm flat 20 minutes later! Of course whilst on my wander I took a few photos and listened to Christmas music on my iPhone.

It has been a rather exciting, amazing and beautiful evening! And it’s less than a week until Christmas…

My blog moved to helenthornber.com on 15th March 2009. Since then I’ve had over 10,500 pageviews from over 5000 visitors, which may be nothing compared to Google, but is a big achievement for me (I feel like I should be making pretty graphics with all the stats like the ones I shared with you yesterday!)

1. The Real Me
My most popular blog post this year has been ‘The Real Me‘ (and not far behind is it’s follow up ‘The Real Me – Part 2‘). It was a blog I’d been unsure about writing so I’m glad my honesty about mental health has had such a positive response.

2. Geek Chic
Another popular blog. A surprise hit that sums up my own combination of girlie and geeky!

3. Waterstone’s Woes
I’m not known for keeping my opinion to myself so every so often I have a bit of a rant. Of all of them this has been the most popular. I still think that Waterstone’s should hire me as head honcho and then all their problems would be solved!

4. Adventures of a novice foodie
Back in August I decided to make the most of my summer holiday by cooking up a storm. Once of my proudest moments this year had to be successfully making sushi that looked like the real deal and tasted yummy. (The giraffe fried egg was pretty impressive too!)

5. Blog 101
Reaching my 100th blog was a big milestone that proved I could stick at it. But it was Blog 101 that I really enjoyed writing. Instead of waiting for the day I’m famous enough for the BBC to invite me in I decided to do it myself! Watch this space in 2010 for ‘Strictly Blog Dancing’, ‘Have I got Blog For You’ and ‘Top Blog’!

I’ll start with ‘Five… things I learned from the internet’. Back in August I finally discovered Google Reader as a way to keep up with all the blogs and websites in the past I’ve wanted to follow but always forgot to check. Most of these links have come via ‘What’s Hot in Google Reader‘ and ‘This Isn’t Happiness‘* which between them keep me up to date with things that make me smile, laugh and go “wow!” I’ve picked five things that I liked so much they got passed on to other people, and that I keep going back to myself.

1. Visual Aids
Do you remember those wall charts for facts you had at school. Well Visual Aids are like those but 100 times cooler! Buy their books from Amazon or posters of the charts from their own online shop.

2. The Deadliest Place on Earth?
This possibly got one of the biggest “WOW“s of the year! I’ll be tuning into ‘How earth made us‘ on BBC2 in the new year to find out more.

“It’s 50 oC and has a humidity of 100%, less than a hundred people have been inside and it’s so deadly that even with respirators and suits of ice you can only survive for 20 minutes before your body starts to fail. It’s the nearest thing to visiting another planet – it’s going deep inside our own.”

3. Did you know? 3.0
I saw this a few months ago, but it was also shown at a conference I attended in November. It’s enough to make your head explode. There is no a Did you know? 4.0 but I prefer the 2008 version.

4. Internet Speeds & Costs around the World
Maybe it’s just because this year I have the worst broadband I’ve ever had that this caught my eye. I do find this fascinating to see how the UK compares to the world in different ways, and this is a very pretty visual comparison. (On the Gizmodo site click the image to see a bigger version)

5. Who is getting rich off the iPhone?
I’m a mac geek and an iPhone fan. And unlike recent suggestions in the media I’m pretty sure I’m not suffering from iPhone Syndrome. Using pretty graphics to explain something fairly complex to me is always going to be a winner!

*Warning: This Isn’t Happiness is NSFW & some posts may contain images which are offensive to some people.