The election campaign is nearly over. I cannot be alone in feeling some relief.
This election was unnecessary. It was called by May for three reasons. The first was because she thought Labour was weak and she wanted to exploit that at cost to the country as a whole.
Second, she felt she was weak in the face of EU negotiations because other UK parties had the temerity to suggest her approach might be wrong and she wanted to turn her back on them.
Third, she felt that she was weak within the Conservative Party and wanted to hold them at bay.
Her assumption was she would get a landslide win. All her problems would be solved, she thought.
She may still get a big win; equally there's a chance she might not. What we do know is her problems will not be solved.
Labour is resurgent: no one doubts this. If there has been a campaign winner it is Labour.
May's own weaknesses have been horribly exposed. The EU are facing a person who has no plan, no apparent negotiating skills, a flawed team of advisers and an inability to exploit the skills of others. It's a disastrous combination.
There can be no doubt the Tory party will be deeply alienated by the way she has run this campaign, keeping it as much as possible out of the limelight whilst treating her Cabinet colleagues with contempt.
May has had a disastrous campaign.
In eleven days she will, supposedly, be leading the UK in EU negotiations. It's a deeply worrying prospect.
If she does not win it will be as worrying: then what would undoubtedly be a minority administration would be undertaking the task.
Let's be blunt: whatever happens we will be worse off in economic terms after Brexit. I strongly suspect that the economic harm will not be all we suffer: the social consequences of Brexit remain extraordinarily serious.
That there may be trouble ahead is, I think, to understate the immediate prospects for this country. The scale of the issue has hardly been touched upon in the election campaign.
There is just one thing to do in the face of that. Please vote. Anything but Conservative (ABC) is the suggestion on how to do so. The right option depends upon where you are.
And then follow Fred Astaire's advice.
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I’d vote Monster Raving Loony if I had to.
Amen to that!
For anyone who is worried about tactical voting – and there are many in the Labour Party – this might help.
IF HITLER INVADED HELL
I WOULD MAKE, AT LEAST,
A FAVOURABLE REFERENCE TO THE DEVIL
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
WINSTON CHURCHILL (after Hitler invaded the USSR)
Hold your nose and do it. Repeating your message – ABC.
A more positive quotation
FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU
THEN THEY LAUGH AT YOU
THEN THEY FIGHT YOU
THEN YOU WIN
MAHATMA GANDHI
I’d swim through vomit to avoid voting Conservative.
Richard, I’m probably miles behind everyone else on this. If I am, please don’t bother to post this comment. If I’m not, some of your readers may find this link helpful.
https://www.tactical2017.com/
It’s worth sharing!
I can’t recall ever feeling as disturbed by a GE than this one. There just seems to be so much more at stake. The inevitable Tory victory will set the country back decades on every count: social justice, economic prosperity, community cohesion, education, ‘Brexit’ and simply building a better future for the next generations. Of course the sky’s not going to fall in on Friday but it’s the general direction of travel that is such a huge worry. Even if she gets a modest majority of 20-30 seats (although I predict more) under this undemocratic FPTP voting system, it makes little difference. A British PM with an overall majority has almost dictatorial constitutional power, unlike in any other Western democracy (so-called).
I appreciate self-induced depression isn’t productive and that one has to shake oneself out of it and focus energy on how to improve the future. But it’s hard especially as I live alone in one of the most Blue constituencies in the country. So I’ll follow your suggestion to ‘face the music and dance’ (such a great movie clip). Unfortunately the weather forecast is for rain (which always favours the Tories) so it’ll be more like ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w40ushYAaYA. Anything to cheer us all up!
Great clip
Very well done on Strictly last year too
Just to show I do more than think about this blog!
But your concern is right
Rising private debt
The Naylor report sell of of the NHS ‘two for the price of one’
12 Billion a year welfare cuts.
The further financilaisation of housing even at death (Philip May’s fingers in that pie)
The whole of the country a carcass for the rentier carrion crows to feed on what is left.
This is what is at stake.
Today the last gasp of the vampyric media tr to sully Corbyn.
neo-liberalism isn’t finished yet, it’s got legs and all those ‘doing alright’ SUV drivers who cannot see beyond their nose or pudenda (whichever the shortest) will vote myopically.
I was hoping the change is now but I fear it isn’t. Dianne Abbot goes after being bullied by crass Tory oiks -she was struggling but where was the reporting of Johnson’s constand gaffes; where the reporting of the ghastly Fallon making huge errors; where the reporting of Hammond coming out with figures with an inaccuracy of billions; where the hammering of Hunt who completely contradicted the Prime Minister?
Today, I’m scared, it’s palpable, the hope that the dent in neo-liberalism’s armour might prove nothing more than a conker bouncing off it’s Panzer -like shell.
I despise my own generation and resent having lived in an intellectual and moral dessert for the past 40 years. I still hope to see this shift, will it be now, I have hope but grave doubts that the change is really now.
‘I despise my own generation and resent having lived in an intellectual and moral dessert for the past 40 years’
That would presumably be an Eton Mess.
Cheerful today Simon
At the very least May is much diminished
There is always five years time
How will she be able negotiate with the EU, when she can’t even negotiate with junior doctors in England?
I must say I second you on the relief front. I have not had much of a heart to write about Scottish politics since this superfluous election was called. Like lots of others, I knew before it began that it would be fought, not on the serious consequences of Brexit but by distracting our attention from the real issues of the results of austerity -the many issues or injustice and social inequality which can only get worse by pursuing a hard Brexit.
The opposition have made this about one issue in Scotland — opposing another independence referendum. At every opportunity Davidson, aided and abetted by the one sided media has accused Nicola Sturgeon of being ‘obsessed’ by independence when in fact the opposite is true. The subject has literally obsessed by the opposition for the last 3 years. Davidson has repeated the lie that Nicola Sturgeon said it was a ‘once in a lifetime’ event so often, that people are forgetting the truth.
Luckily most of the SNP were paying close attention to what Nicola actually said, not what she was reported to have said by Davidson. What she actually said was nothing of the kind. She wasn’t mentioning independence much at all if I recall, just getting on with the day job, but when pressed relentlessly by a media still fixated on it, what she actually said was that there might be provisos to calling a second, one such being, that if Scotland was dragged out of the European Union against our wishes, then we might look again at it. After all, it was the very same Davidson who warned us that if we voted for independence in 2014 we would not be able to remain in Europe! But then, is May has a talent for bloviation, the opposition in Scotland, in particular Davidson has a talent for obfuscation. She wouldn’t want to be reminded of that too often though, so she makes sure she gets in first with her big whopping lie at every opportunity. It’s a personal reaction I know but she is the member of the hockey team who will break your leg and blame it on the stick. Bully is an understatement.
I was here participating in the referendum of 2014 and I can say unequivocally that it was the friendliest, most positive, most welcoming campaign that could ever have been fought. So much so, that for the first time in my life I felt truly engaged in politics. Here was a chance to take Scotland forward to a fairer society. Here was a chance to make Scotland forward thinking greener economy. The excitement was palpable. Conversations about possibilities were taking place in homes and meeting places all over Scotland.
Any division that has since evolved has been stirred up by the ‘no surrender’ unionists to the disgust of most right thinking people in this country.
When the heart has been knocked out of me, I usually tune to Paul Kavanagh for some crack. (that’s Gaelic craic meaning conversation as opposed to the drug!) Paul never fails to hit the nail on the head of the debate up here and so instead of me repeating what he said I’ll leave the link below for those who are interested.
The Tories will no doubt claim a few seats from the SNP tomorrow. It would be difficult to see how the SNP could replicate the rather startling result they enjoyed in the last election but this does mean (as the press will spin it) that the SNP are losing their popularity. It just means they will have gone from unassailable to strong. Supposing they lost as many as 8 seats, and I don’t think they will, but supposing they did. This will still make them more popular than any Labour government has ever been in Scotland even at their zenith. How can that be anything other than a mandate for a 2nd independence referendum?
I refer you to Today’s post by Paul Kavanagh
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/
Thanks Grace
There is a certain incongruity (if I may say), juxtaposing the inarticulate, spiritless manner and bearing of Theresa May’s drab 21st century personality (no matter how much time she spends on shoes and costume jewellery to disguise the vacuity); with the elegance and grace of Astaire-Rogers in 1936; who, with the help of RKO, the Carroll-Polgasse set and Irving Berlin’s song turned an ordinary fim into art: the Apotheosis of Art Deco.
I’ve just been catching up on all your blogs for the past three days, Richard, having been otherwise engaged in exam boards and so on. First, can I say that I think your apology to Corbyn while valid, does fail to mention that it may well be the case that he improved in so many ways precisely because you and other prominent people were so critical of many aspect of how he handled himself (and his team). And I’ll admit I too have been impressed. Clearly, and not surprisingly given his years spent campaigning, he’s happy being with people, whereas May has an obvious issue with people – and particularly those she’d consider plebs (i.e. most of us).
But it’s also noticeable that someone’s also had a word about his image (e.g. how he dresses), and indeed, told him not to loose his temper when people like Michael Crick wind him up (to be fair to Crick he sets out to do that with all politicians). And there are plenty of other examples of both the style side and the substance (e.g. the manifesto commitments) being improved for the election.
Finally, impartiality rules during election campaigns also mean that both the coverage of him and of Labour’s message have been more widely and accurately portrayed than had been the case over the period since he became leader of the Labour Party – and will be the case after the election. And that alone makes a big difference.
Secondly – and very sadly – I have to say that I don’t share the optimism of some of the commentors on your various blogs as to the outcome of the election. I would love to be proved wrong – more than anything – but having called Brexit and Trump correctly I’m going to say that I think the Tories will increase their majority, perhaps to 40 seats. And in the process they’ll gain a footing again in Scotland and may well do well in some parts of Wales.
Beyond that I don’t think it takes much thought to conclude that UKIP will get nowhere and that the Lib Dems will be lucky to improve on the seats they had before this election. In which case Farron is gone.
Ultimately, and as I wrote in a comment on another of your blogs a few weeks ago, we – by which I mean any form of progressive in the UK – are going to have to wait for the disaster that’ll be May’s Brexit before enough people in the UK finally see the Tories for what they are and always have been – a dark, evil, mess of cruelty, greed and self interest. And, central to their demise – as it was over the period of Major’s government – will be the absolute shredding of their utterly false (but sadly widely believed, not least due to the Tory media) claim to be the party of economic competence and common sense. Brexit will destroy that myth even more soundly than Black Wednesday did. That’s what Labour – under whoever will be leader after the election (and I assume Corbyn will continue unless Labour is wiped out tomorrow) – and all progressives have to prepare for now.
In short, as the scale of the Tory victory becomes apparent through the early hours of Friday I’ll console myself with the thought that this is simply a pyric victory, and that by the end of this year the Tories reputation and standing, like Trump’s, will have been well and truly trashed.
I have to say I think you’re right Ivan
Thanks
Well, I’ve been quiet for a couple of years but have now moved to the UK. I am a natural Tory but May is dreadful: no vision and no backbone. Why does she toady up to Trump so? She will be gone on health grounds in a year’s time, though the A team of Tories are a shocking bunch.
Labour’s campaign has been surprisingly professional, but you simply cannot have the likes of Diane Abbott on the front bench. It makes the offering look absurd, she clearly doesn’t have any grasp of the issues. My Jewish friends are terrified of Corbyn. That concerns me. But at least he has a vision. I don’t even know why May wants to be PM: naked self-ambition? Can that be all there is to her?
But the main thing from this election for me is the unwillingness of all parties to be honest on the cost of the NHS and social care. May tried, clumsily, to raise this and then buried is straight away. But the cost of a cradle to grave first class health system doesn’t work with an aging population. We need a proper debate on how to approach healthcare and the aim should be to give the support that would allow extended families to care for elderly relatives. It will be the major issue at the next election and I don’t think any party has even approached having an answer they are willing to share with the public.
The answer is to spend
We can until we have full employment
And then thank heaven for robots
Just out of interest, why did you feel it necessary to apologise to Jeremy Corbyn? He may have performed better during the campaign than you would have believed possible, but your criticisms of him were made based on your actual observations and experience of him at the time. They were therefore perfectly valid. If anyone should be apologising it’s Corbyn for wasting the last 2 years. Or, by apologising, were you trying to mend bridges for a possible job after the election?
Read what I wrote
I could not have been clearer that this was personal and wax not about following a party line as would be required of anyone working for a party.
I could not have made it clearer I was ruling myself out of any idea of a job
That was deliberate