Election night, anything in (brackets) describes what’s happening on the shit pump.
FC was on the phone first thing this morning (“It’s true Jeremy!..I’ve got the bloody thing in my handbag!” – Shirley Williams) complaining that there was no UKIP candidate to vote for, so he had to vote for the fascist Tories instead. (“Two candidates in Romford have had a fight and one of them has been hospitalised” – That’s bloody great!!).
Saffron Walden has always been a safe Tory seat, when I was little Mum used to canvas for the Labour party and I recall (Houghton and Washington – Labour) Dad spending all afternoon one Sunday driving us around the countryside so she could leaflet the more remote areas. As I looked out into the pouring rain watching her hurry down a path towards a farm dad looked out and said to himself, “She’s wasting her time here, these sort of people will always vote Tory”.
Maybe it’s because I was younger but party politics seemed much more honourable back then, none of this partisan de-alignment and switching parties because there’s an extra 0.25p off NI on offer. If you cared about our society and a future for your kids without nuclear weapons then you voted Labour, if you wore corduroys and never went down the pub then you voted SDP, otherwise it was Maggie all the way.
Now that all of the parties have morphed into some sort of conservative hybrid there seems little point in me voting. When I look at those people asking me to support them I don’t see decency, social justice or any form of wealth distribution (Barnsley central – Labour) on offer, just bickering and self centred one-upmanship.
It’s the grass roots Labour supporters I feel sorry for, those that stood behind the party during the Thatcher years only to watch it transform into their worst nightmare before their very eyes. I look at them in 2005 as I did in 2001 and feel genuinely upset about their predicament.
Stuff all those going back to the Tories via the holy Lib Dems, voters that were wooed by (Hull West & Hessle – Labour) Piety’s smug brand of conservatism (Vauxhall – Labour) and don’t even have the decency to admit that their eyes are bigger than their stomachs.
I know apathy is negative and unhelpful, but the whole thing is just a fucking bollock circus.