Election Blog number one


They’re off. Some have been for years. Now they all are in a race for your vote, with the option to reject it if they don’t like it. Just three more days of suits, respectable auras and, in the case of this Parliament, unsavoury smell, and MPs will turn from paragons pontificating to plaintiffs pleading. For votes. Elections are mysterious things. They never go the way politicians and pundits want them to.  So no predictions (yet) but let’s look at expectations instead.

Boris hopes for a boost after screwing the semblance of a deal out of an intransigent EU. He’d like a 1979 result. He won’t get it .He’s not running against a clapped out Labour government but his own party in power.  Farage will split the Brexit vote and we in the northern tribe will (mainly) stay loyal to Labour. Another 2015 is the best he can hope for.

Having snatched defeat from the jaws of disaster in 2017 Jeremy hopes that an election he didn’t want will carry him to victory though since then he’s fucked up on Brexit, crumbled under the Blairites and lost the Scottish base on which Labour governments were built. Another 1923 could be more likely but  today’s picky Liberals won’t support a Labour government.

The Liberals need another 2010 but Swinson is no Clegg People know what 2010 led to, Bollocks to Brexit is no clarion call for democracy and makes the rest of the Liberal package- PR, cannabis, and votes for any group that might vote Liberal, all look irrelevant. Britain’s key problem is economic. The Libs have no policies on that but they’ll form a coalition with anyone except Jeremy, Boris and Nicola which leaves only gabbler Lucas. Jo will play Greta Garbo (with NHS teeth) while her party reverts to their traditional role as a bucket for malcontents to spit into; a minority role even though there are more malcontents around.

The SNP should hold their position in Scotland but despite the oratorical triumphs of Blackford, the Ross Demosthenes, their kilted crusade has become defensive. Two fifths of Scots voted Brexit, the Salmond case is coming up and independence is more mirage than miracle if it means a customs border with England and  Euro bawbees.

As for the Greens, the political arm of Veganism, they’re too virtuous for the muddy world of first past the post. Still they’re happy being  misunderstood  and rebelling against extinction. So it doesn’t matter.

BritaIn needs a strong government with the majority to govern. At this stage with the choice between two main parties neither of which electors particularly like, the coming election looks unlikely to produce that. Most elections end up differently to the way they start out but that unpredictability also means they can end up the way they begin too. In a mess. The electorate says “another fine mess you got us into” to the politicians. Now they have the chance to do it to themselves.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prophesy and the Polls

A week to go before the election and the know all pundits, pollsters and political papers seem to have decided the result for us. Their prophesy? Boris wins wIth a majority big enough to govern,Labour loses the gains it made in the flush of "Oh, oh, oh Jeremy Corbyn "enthusiasm and Jeremy is accused   of the most horrendous crimes such as not listening to the Queen’s Christmas message. Meanwhile Boris remains remorselessly cheerful as he   tells impossible untruths about the paradise to come The Liberals, still under the curse of the coalition, stay where they were. Down. And in a desperate attempt to get the attention of a bored electorate all parties shower out money and promises to a nation which doesn’t believe any of them.   The parties are behaving as the prophets prescribe . Labour   falls into to a pointless argument over whether and when Jeremy Corbyn should resign after the defeat, Boris   talks of handing out tax cuts on day one ...
Read more

FOR THE FALLEN

For the Fallen: my sympathy. That’s about all you’ll get as the arc lights are switched off your supporters drift away, the IPSA money tap dries and the staff who’ve served your every whim depart clutching their P45s.The   constituents you’ve served so faithfully, worked so hard for, listened to their witterings moans and problems, show no gratitude have already forgotten you. They won’t even recognise you if you’re daft enough ever to come back and at the going down of the sun and in the morning they won’t remember you. What ever you’ve said about partnership, uniting for change and standing together there’s no sentimentality in politics. It’s over .You’re just another person reduced from press releases to tweets. Couldn’t have happened to a more promising contender and certainly shouldn’t have happened to you .It wouldn’t if you’d had better support, if your leader had recognised your ability, had time to listen to your ideas, strategies and warnings, and not go...
Read more

Why I am voting Labour

CONFESSIONS OF A BAFFLED BREXITEER. The basic choice at this confusing election is between “Get Brexit done” and “Get austerity stopped” That means that however many minor Parties are now in the fray it is essentially a choice between the Conservatives and Labour. That poses a real problem for your’s truly. I voted against joining the European Union in 1975 and have urged withdrawal ever since . It’s brought no real benefits but has become a drain and a burden on our fragile economy which   now cuts us off from   the growing world Yet I’ve   supported Labour ever since I joined the party in 1956. I did so because Labour worked for   the masses not the classes. It tilts the social balances to the people and   built Britain’s good society of full employment,fairness, welfare, health and education which Britain enjoyed until Margaret Thatcher demolished it. Today the choice is less clear cut. The Tories support Brexit and propose to turn t...
Read more