Rob, you form your opinion based on TV channels!? It explains, then 
I form them from looking at several different ones. I observe, draw conclusions and find a broad consensus in some areas, such a shared base perhaps indicatiing the residence of truth. Local ones (opinions) are more difficult to form because of language and little-understood local tensions that I grasp only enough to realise that they exist. I read local newspapers on and off, and find them to be quite partisan - much like the folks doing politics on LuLa.
Views on Brit politics I form from being born within the ethos; it's difficult not to see what goes down. I may have a slight advantage on that score by being a bit of a mongrel, and having lived in four countries by the time I was sixteen. That certainly does free the mind a little bit, and tends to remove blind xenophobia. When you realise that some of the "foreigners" amongst whom you lived were possibly nicer folks than some of the ones you knew back home, things are ever different. The concept that whatever nationality you have is automatically the superior one is a load of crap. You have travelled a lot; you must have formed opinions on that subject too. One cannot form a valid opinion of a people by the look of their government. They can only elect - when they can do so - people who either promise them something they want or need, or by picking the least unpleasant candidate that they can find. Sadly, experience is usually overtaken by habit. But perhaps that's changing: younger people are becoming more and more reluctant to vote for anybody, seeing them more soon for the liars that they are. That's one result of broader public education.
