Happy New Year

I suppose I ought to say a Happy New Year to my small coterie of irregular followers, or my irregular coterie of small followers.

I'm not anticipating any personal involvement in elections as a candidate this year - the incumbent in Witney seems unminded to change tack and I don't see his Lib Dem acolytes, unwilling though they might be, jumping ship in a hurry.

There are no local elections in Carterton this year so I don't have to concern myself with that. I suspect that the developments planned to the west of Carterton will proceed despite the objections of most people I know; certainly the pressure is on to get the plans sorted before any incumbent councillor has to fight an election based on the issues.

I'm continuing my studies at Birkbeck College in London and, as I've borrowed a lot of money to take a LLM, the focus is on completing those in style.

I'll be observing the odd election if I can squeeze it in, but there is no knowing, until the invites to bid come out, whether I will be available on the correct dates. I'm off to Kazakhstan in a few days as a short-term observer, but that will have minimum effect on my studies. The opportunity to go to Russia to observe the Presidential elections has just come up again, but I can't afford the time. That's a pity as I would love to return to Russia having spent a joyous few days in Moscow and Ekaterinburg during Putin's first election. I was selected in 2007 to observe the Parliamentary elections, but failed to get into the country when all of the observers' visa applications were rejected (in my case twice)! Turkmenistan, which has elections this year, is also likely to be a no go because of timing considerations, but perhaps I'll get back to Belarus for a third time if the UK sends observers to the Parliamentary elections there. Minsk is one of my favourite foreign capitals.

Now to finish my essays before term starts!