Goodbye to Westminster

Almost completely updated on my blog now! I'll give a little update on the past week and weekend, then I will only have to update on the last day of Spring Break, so long ago. Last Tuesday I went into work for my final day at Parliament. As expected, Gordon had announced the night previously that he would call the election that day. I took my time walking in and reflected on my days at the Palace and what I had learned from it. It went by extremely fast, but I have grown infinitely from my experience on Whitehall, and I have knowledge to bring back to my future endeavors, which I guess is the whole idea. As I entered the office, I found our little tv by my desk turned on with the volume up, a rarity, as the BBC was covering Gordon's election call like it was Michael Jackson's funeral. Owen gave me my final pile of work, to finish up the letters I had been working on the past few weeks and organize my desk and the constituent excel database. We worked sporadically in the morning, turning occasionally to watch the tv and the three party leaders launch their campaigns. The entire office, including my boss huddled around the tv as Gordon Brown made his campaign launch from 10 Downing, his entire cabinet in tow. It should be a fun election campaign as the party leaders elbow for position on topics such as spending and taxation. I resisted some chuckles when David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, mentioned that "this is a vote for change" about 16 times in his speech. I guess the Hope and Change platform works, so you might as well run with it. Maybe the British electorate won't fall for it like we did. We shall see.

I made some changes to my final letters about beer tax, pension funds, water scarcity, and environment stuff and picked my bosses brains about the election over and after lunch. Owen said he is sick of the election campaign already. Justifiably so, as he has been working on leaflets for the past month and he has to answer all of my stupid questions. After lunch Owen worked on the website and I tidied up my things, going back through the stack of letters I had been working on the entire semester. I reminisced about some of the more difficult ones and was thoroughly proud of the progress I have made in the field communications management. Owen put up the final website, an html "web in a box" from Labour HQ, and officially diverted the parliament emails to new election accounts. We proofread the site while I started spying on the other election candidates in Cardiff South and Penarth. Our guy shouldn't have too much of a problem, given that the other candidate's websites are either hideously constructed (I think anyone at ND who has taken IT management could come up with a better site) with awful color schemes or completely lacking substance. Even so, my bosses are doing due diligence to make sure they win in May, and I will be able to go out there to help for at least one day.

We ended the day a little late, as I didn't really want to leave. But we said our goodbyes and I gave the office some presents, Costa Rican coffee, reese's cups, and a huge ND coffee mug. Owen said it was a pleasure working with me and that I did a wonderful job. I was especially pleased when he said that sometimes they only give interns busy work because they don't trust them to do well, but they let me do lots of stuff because they knew I could handle it and I wouldn't screw it up. Maybe they were just saying that to make me feel good, but hey, it made me feel good. It wasn't our final goodbye, as we are getting together for drinks next week, and I will be traveling out to Cardiff at some point for the campaign, but it was goodbye to Westminster and the office, so we had the official handshake (the hugs will probably come at the Pub after a few pints) and final pictures and look out the window at Big Ben and Victoria Tower, with the Union Jack gently waving in the London sunset. I sure am going to miss that view.