Wait and See

So here we are then. Election day. And unless every psephologist in Britain has been doing heroic quantities of glue since Christmas, it looks like the Tories are finally fucking off. Tonight's election results will be an asteroid in the bollocks of the current government. I try to be excited about it and I almost am but something is missing.

It’s more than knowing that many Tory MPs lack the backbone to see what their electorate think of them now they’ve about to be thrown out of office. There should still be plenty of schadenfreude tonight despite the ranks of cowards quitting the stage before the end of the play. Not fit to govern, just frit, as their once beloved leader bellowed in the Commons.

So why my lack of excitement? 

It’s because I keep being told “wait and see.” As if those millions waiting to be housed, of children needed to be fed, of sick treated by the NHS have the time and energy for the exercise of such patience. 

I fear that the grownups have not so much entered the room, more that another set of self-interested bastards have. And when “wait and see” stops playing on the political jukebox, the old classic “we’ve inherited a mess” will get an airing. 

Your NHS will not be saved. Not with Big Wes and his American friends in charge. Your kids will still go to school in dangerously broken buildings. The rivers will still flow with human shit. The life expectancy of our most vulnerable will continue to decline. Homelessness will rise further still.

That our next PM has spent more time being questioned about how JK Rowling might vote than say his position on Gaza or climate change or lifting the two child cap on benefits suggests that although the money is there (and it is always there), the political will isn’t (and it never is). 

All this, in the sixth richest country in the world. People need hope. And they need change. The former they may have today. The latter won’t be coming tomorrow, no matter what Sir Keir tells you. Or any time soon. Because if genuine change was on the agenda he wouldn’t be heading anywhere near Downing Street. 

Winning, they say, is everything. You have to be in power to change things. But I fear this landslide will not be interpreted by its benefactors as a desire for the radical changes needed rather than as a polite blue light for a slightly more competent, hopefully less corrupt remix of the toxic shite we have now. Because, as I said just now, genuine change isn’t what the Sensible People are selling. If the Labour Party hated the Tories as much as they hate the left of their own party, we would all be better off already.

After the last five years maybe a bit of stability is needed. Some semblance of competence and normality. These should be the bare minimum requirements for any ruling party but the bar is now so low it qualifies as revolutionary. 

Here’s why I might dare to have hope. If Labour achieve the kind of majority people think they will then they will have done it without communicating any real idea of what Labour stand for. Which means that people really do want change. And a decade in power gives Labour the time to implement it. Maybe things can only get better. Maybe Starmer isn’t a ruthlessly ambitious individual with a vicious streak. Maybe speaking to The Sun yesterday, after telling the people of Liverpool he never would, is just another blip, a necessary bruise to be gained in the grubby ring of politics. But then again maybe he is just another liar after all. Knighted as he was for his part in the rush to give disaffected black youths disproportionate prison sentences for rioting and looting, reluctant as he was to back a ceasefire in Gaza, delighted as he is to still sit and slur thousands of former Labour supporters as anti-semitic, it cannot be said that Keir Rodney Starmer is an obvious thorn in the side of the establishment. But perhaps he's like one of those alien ships buried beneath civilisation in War of the Worlds, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself. 

We will wait and see. My reckoning is we will be told that we’re just going to have to “tighten our belts” further still. 

Which, roughly translated, means that those at the bottom of the pit, and that is around 15 million or so people living below the poverty line, won’t be getting a rope thrown down to save them any time soon. And because you don’t see poor people on the news* it isn’t going to matter. 

This is just an opinion. I’m an old man with vaguely left wing leanings. I may yet be pleasantly surprised by the outcome of a Starmer government. I will only be too pleased to admit I was wrong if so.

None of it matters really. The climate crisis is approaching at such a pace that we will all soon be gone anyway. The mainstream parties don’t care and the greens are practically a cult as far as the media are concerned. If a bunch of well meaning kids covering Stonehenge in cornflour irritates the media then screaming for the abolition of capitalism from the top of a burning Amazon warehouse probably won’t get much traction. We are, as Bambi's mum says, fucked.

I digress. 

I have nothing to gain from arguing with anyone. I still love you all. Vote as you see fit. But vote this current lot out. That rabble, that bloated choir of racists, rapists and absolute fucking bastards has to go.

Stick your X next to anyone but them or Reform.

I love you all.

PREDICTION (not including the 18 Northern Ireland seats) - Labour 425, Conservative 105, Lib Dem 74, SNP 18, Green 4, Plaid 4, Reform 4. 

PS I ain’t engaging. Life is too short. You won’t change my opinion. I won’t change yours. Comment if you want to, share if you must.

 

*unless they’ve done something terrible.