Tea Parties

This week saw the first National Tea Party Convention held on 4 February in Nashville.

Entirely appropriate you may say that this should be Teapot's birthday. You may even think it was held in her honour.

But sometimes things are not quite what they seem. Because this Convention was the high point so far of a grassroots movement sweeping across the USA to protest about the astronomical US government budget deficit. It's greatest victory to date has been to help install a republican as one of the senators for Massachusetts following the death of Ted Kennedy.

You may remember how the Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a protest about a tax on tea when a group of American colonists threw the tea overboard into Boston Harbour. What a waste of tea, I hear her say!

Our latter day tea party goers don't throw tea into harbours but they have soon become a raggle taggle coalition whose natural leader is Sarah Palin. Ms Palin will address their convention today. There is a Tea Party anthem and Teapot is practising hard her best country and western drawl to improve on the version you can see through this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2H8xHFXC8U&feature=player_embedded

There is something revealing in all this about the USA. The extremes of right and left, farm and city, mid west and eastern cities, the religious right. A longing for the past. After all Andrew Jackson repaid the national debt in the 1830s. And a coming to terms with the post 9/11 order alongside the rise of China who may now have the next man on the moon.

And how appropriate to write all this whilst Teapot is drinking a cup of the best Yorkshire!