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Letters from the UK

The UK Guardian dipped its toe into the overheated – practically scalding &nash; waters of the current US presidential contest and got a bit of a burn. A project to connect Europeans with American voters from Clark County Ohio, intended "to get people talking and thinking about the impact of the US election on citizens of other countries," was more than successful in meeting its goal, but not without pain. [Link]

Then came the backlash. We had expected it, of course. Fox-viewing America was never going to embrace our modest sortie into US politics and we knew full well that any individual voter might take exception to the idea of a foreigner writing to offer some advice on how they should vote - our website explicitly urged participants to "imagine how you would feel if you received a letter from an American urging you to vote for Tony Blair ... or Michael Howard." But you couldn't fail to be a little shocked by the volume and pitch of the invective directed our way. Most of it was coordinated by a handful of resourceful bloggers - the ringleader of whom is fittingly published on a site called "spleenville" - and much of it was eye-wateringly unpleasant. "I hope your earholes turn to arseholes and shit on your shoulders," was one, more repeatable example of the scatalogical genre. Another memorable mail asked:

"How secure is your building that contains all you morons???

Do you have enough security??

ARE YOU SURE ??? Are you VERY sure ??"

Interestingly, one of the recurrent themes running through the onslaught was an ardent admiration for Tony Blair from the kind of people who might feel slightly out of place in even the biggest of New Labour big tents. Another was a curious obsession with the state of British dentistry: "MAY YOU HAVE TO HAVE A TOOTH CAPPED. I UNDERSTAND IT TAKES AT LEAST 18 MONTHS FOR YOUR GREAT MEDICAL SERVICES TO GET AROUND TO YOU." At times, it felt as though whole swathes of America had suffered an epidemic of Tourette syndrome.

jon posted this at 8:36 AM
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