The Morning After

In case you hadn't noticed, we The People of Britain™ had an election yesterday, and got the predicted result: a massive Labour landslide and humiliation for the Conservatives, including multiple "Portillo Moments", where former cabinet ministers – and in the case of the ridiculous Liz Truss, Prime Ministers so ephemeral the word "former" seems an exaggeration – lost their seats. So why am I so strangely unexcited by it all this morning?

I suppose it boils down to that old anarchist's sigh of disillusion, "no matter who you vote for the government always gets in". True, Keir Starmer has thoroughly pre-prepared us for the Great Disappointment that always follows in the wake of a Labour victory, but I do feel sorry for those young voters and activists who have not been here before. Brace yourselves, young 'uns: you are about to experience one of life's great lessons, as laid out well before this election in Psalm 146:

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of a tool-maker, in whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his default setting; in that very day his policies perish.

I paraphrase a bit.

But then, I remember 2nd May 1997. It was a gloriously sunny morning, Tony Blair had won the previous day's election by what passed in those days for a landslide, ending over twenty years of Tory misrule, and I drove all the way from Southampton to Peter Goldfield's establishment at Duckspool in Somerset with a song in my heart (no, it wasn't bloody "Things Can Only Get Better"), destined for a long weekend workshop with photographer Paul Hill. I was convinced, given the scale of that mandate, that the cautious pre-election manifesto would be torn up and thrown to the winds, and an alternative, full-on socialist programme of reform would be pulled from its hiding place in Blair's jacket pocket. What an idiot... Still, the workshop was great, with quite a few of us floating on air throughout.

Interestingly, Labour's share of the popular vote yesterday is put at 35%, just 1.4% higher than the alleged "disaster" of 2019, and actually 5% lower than Jeremy Corbyn's share in 2017, and on a smaller turnout, too.  I haven't done the maths – I'm sure someone will – but I've a suspicion that, were it not for the egregiously far-right Reform Party splitting the Tory vote so comprehensively, the scale of the Labour victory would be rather more modest. Those who advocate for some form of proportional representation to replace our venerable "first past the post", constituency-based system might want to take a good look at Reform's vote share and ponder. The banished Corbyn, meanwhile, has unsurprisingly kept his seat running as an independent. Now, I'm no great follower of the contortions of parliamentary politics, but Starmer's persecution of those on the left of "his" party has always seemed opportunistic, vindictive, and above all performative: "See how tough I can be on these leftie losers!" How convenient the confusion between anti-semitism and opposition to Israel has been for him; what a nuisance he'll have to walk that line himself in government now. Not to mention immigration, gender identity issues, and all the rest of the things that get people hot and bothered and yet have no clear position for a weather-vane politician like Starmer to take.

I have to confess that we were secretly pleased that our own MP, the Conservative Caroline Nokes managed to fight off the challenge from the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems had been pushing election pamphlets and personalised letters through our letterbox every day for weeks. Their line was basically "Labour can't win in this seat" (true) so vote Lib Dem to kick out a Tory. But, Tory or no, Nokes has been a good constituency MP who has responded positively and promptly to a number of communications we have had with her, who has a respectable interest in "women's issues" and was openly hostile to Boris Johnson and the proto-Reform tendency in her party. If this country is not to see one of its two major political parties take a sharp turn to the extreme populist right, there will be a need for moderates like Caroline Nokes in Parliament.

And that's about all I have to say. We'll just have to wait and see what a Labour government can do with the appalling mess it's just been handed. They've landed themselves in the paradoxical position that, having campaigned in prose, they will now have to govern in poetry. A bit of competence, less cronyism, and a desire actually to govern would be nice, but it won't be enough. That's not the "change" people want, even if it's the change that was unambiguously on offer. "For the many, not the few", though... That has a certain ring to it. Now, where have I heard that before?

Sitting on the fence? Two for joy? Storm clouds approaching?

Pick your metaphor...