Now Is The Summer Of Our Discontent

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By airyfairy

Wed, 19 Jun 2024
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37 comments
 

The views expressed here are the author’s own and are in no way endorsed by ABCTales. ABCTales welcomes writing from across the political spectrum as long as it conforms to the site’s Terms and Conditions.

 

So here we are. The UK election everybody wants and nobody can be arsed about.

I haven’t watched any of the debates. Normally I watch them all. Not necessarily because they’re going to change my voting intention, but because it’s my civic duty to know what the future Government, the future Opposition, and even the Others, are saying and promising. I know they’re not going to do all of it, or even a tenth of it, but at least I’ll know what I’m moaning about when the time comes.

This time, I can’t bear it.

I can’t bear the ‘answer’ to every question starting, “Well, look…” which means “look over there, look at them, look at that squirrel, anything other than look for any meaning in what I’m about to say”. I can’t bear the refusal to admit Brexit’s a disaster, whether you think that’s because it was a shit idea in the first place or because we never got a Proper Brexit. Whatever. The bloody thing doesn’t work. I can’t bear the so-called apologies for ‘mistakes’ that involved sentient beings in positions of responsibility making conscious decisions to say or do things that are stupid, vicious or downright incomprehensible.

We have so far been fortunate, in this country, that our would-be populist demagogues are so bloody bad at it. We are helped by Brits’ natural instinct to tear down and eviscerate anyone seen as getting above themselves. Exactly when they get above themselves is ill-defined, because it largely depends on where they started from. If you’re from the lower orders, it’s usually when you’ve made enough money to buy a nice house and you venture to express opinions. If you’re filthy rich, you’re probably fine until you run over a dog. Or fail to properly observe D-Day commemorations.

I mean, what was he thinking? Whatever your views on the iconography of the Second World War (I’m not immune. My Mum was bombed out in the East End of London, my Dad survived the Plymouth blitz, and his father was killed in action. I cannot start November without a poppy on my lapel.) it was mind-blowingly stupid. You’re supposed to be a statesman, Rishi. Yay for you, snubbing the Americans at the ceremony on Omaha Beach, where there was the worst slaughter of the landings and thousands of Americans died. If you weren’t so rich, your Green Card might be in question. You can destroy the NHS (I know he didn’t do it on his own, give me a bit of poetic licence here), roll out the red carpet for Covid with ‘Eat Out To Help The Virus’ and generally fuck the country up every orifice, but don’t mess with D-Day.

In the interests of balance, I should also find something unpleasant to say about Keir Starmer, but I’m not the BBC so I don’t have to. Is he the answer to all my political prayers? No. Do I deplore the way he’s backtracking on some of the previous pledges? Yes. Do I think he would easily have slotted into a Heath or even a Major government? Yes. Do I think he’s boring? Just run the bloody country with a degree of efficiency and decorum, mate. Just make something, somewhere, work.

Few of us, except those who can buy their way out of trouble, have escaped the effects of the last fourteen years. People like me, pensioners who are lucky enough to have a roof over their heads and a few savings but who come nowhere near the Luxury Boomer category, have seen their carefully marshalled resources drain away as the cost of living rises. If you think this is a niche issue, wait until the country is faced with a rising tide of elderly homeless. Their kids can’t afford to house themselves, never mind Mum and Dad.

It has always astonished me how much of a surprise we Boomers are to whoever’s running the country. When we were kids, no-one seemed prepared for the extra demand on school places. Then there was the scramble to meet the completely unforeseen need for higher education places. After that things calmed down a bit, until the first of us started getting old and infirm and then bugger me, who could have possibly predicted the need for extra pension provision, hospital beds and care packages? We are the monster that comes over a hill and then gets completely forgotten about until we poke our heads above the summit of the next one.

But, of course, some of us, though by no means all of us, had our moments in the sun. A lot of us, though by no means all of us, managed to buy a house. We were part of the post-war consensus which said that if we managed to avoid getting nuked by bombs or rogue power stations, things would, by the laws of logic, get better.

It never occurred to me that my daughter, with a decent, secure job, would struggle even to afford rent on a room in a shared house, and would face possible homelessness twice (so far) due to the insecurity of rented accommodation. My son and his partner have managed to buy a house via shared ownership, and with help from her parents, who aren’t rich but have a bit more put by than I do. Before that, my son and his partner were also living in shared accommodation, with little prospect of getting out.

Children today are shorter than they were a generation ago. Children in poverty lack basic nutrition. Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch, where old men complain about how the young don’t appreciate the hardships their parents experienced, wouldn’t land at all now.

And all over Europe, and elsewhere, we’re seeing the truth of that saying: authoritarianism gets a hold, not when everyone believes in the same thing, but when pretty much everyone believes in nothing.

Of course, we can’t afford to keep relying on the ineptitude of our demagogues. They’re learning. Farage has been taking lessons at the feet of the Great Orange One. Meloni is undoubtedly happy to offer tuition. The coin Macron has tossed twists and spins in the air while the French people wait to see which way it will land.

So I’m not proud that I can’t be doing with any of those wretched debates. I think it’s a natural human reaction to all the lies and venality and corruption of the last decade and a half, but societal exhaustion is the demagogue’s greatest weapon. That’s another thing I can’t forgive recent governments for. The job of government is not just to spend the country’s money in whatever way they see fit, for better or worse, or guard the borders or try and persuade someone to make the trains run on time. In a democracy, the government’s job is also to protect that democracy. To protect the investment people make in it. To not squander every ounce of good will on self-aggrandisement and self-enrichment. To ensure that people, even those who disagree with the outcome of elections, still feel that elections are worth having.

I don’t know why anyone who isn’t rich would want to vote Tory, but if you do, then I’ll agree to differ. It’s a complete mystery of the universe to me why anyone would want to vote Reform, but if you do, OK. I might take to the streets with a banner and make it clear what I think, but as long as your chosen government lets me do that, I won’t give up all hope.

Maybe I’ll watch the debates on catch-up, after the latest episode of Doctor Who. (Come on Doctor, where are you?? We’re battling monsters. Never mind Sutekh the Great Destroyer and getting your end away in Not-Bridgerton, we need the polarity of the neutron flow reversed right here, and right now.) Or maybe I won’t. I will vote, though. That, at least, I will always be arsed to do. I hope everybody will always be arsed to do that.

 

Picture is of the ballot box which was used in Pontefract in 1872 in Britain's first secret ballot to elect a Member of Parliament. Copyright free at Wikimedia Commons: File:Ballot box, Pontefract Museum.JPG - Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

Certificate 18
Non-fiction
Rant
Other Non-fiction
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by lenchenelf on

Despondency set in early with me, the vicious playground squabbling under public televisual scrutiny a toe curling experience. yet, I will vote, for it is all I have to be heard, I hope others do too.

Rant on, dear heart, rant on.

Best

L x

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Thanks, Lena. I feel I should be more engaged because I think this will be a turning point, good or bad, in the system. I'm hoping for good. Not expecting, just hoping.

Thanks for stopping by.

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I am very clear (why do they always say that?It makes zero sense!) that this is a splendid rant, and I will join you in hoping everyone will vote. Thank you very much for posting it

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Yes! When they all say they're very clear and it couldn't be more devious. Do you think they have classes in obfuscation or is it just a natural talent?

Thanks for reading.

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

It used to be 'so' as in starting every sentence with it. Now it's being very clear. There must be a cross-party book of rules somewhere

 

Submitted by marandina on

I have watched the TV debates (I get paid for online surveys afterwards). It has been grim viewing but I do think there is a strong case for a "boring" PM. I think the electorate are fed up with charismatic leaders who flatter to decieve. I think it's a misnoma that someone has to be entertaining and engaging to be good at what they do. Steady and consistent are valuable commodities.

There have been some golden moments from the debates like Beth Rigby pulling Starmer up for using the phrase "No plans to.." when challenged on tax rises. She turned to the audience and said "..for clarity..."no plans" is code for we may/might do.." which got a round of applause. No matter what party or which politician...they are ALL slippery.

Then there's Rishi with his "..we didn't have enough money to pay for Sky television when I was growing up." That has triggered so many memes. My favourite is the young lads on bikes in a nod to the old Hovis ad with far away looks as a house revels in its ownership of the satellite channel. I think a mock Just Giving page started up to help him out!

https://www.indy100.com/politics/rishi-sunak-sky-tv-started-2668517600

I hear you re the challenges for young people. For what it's worth, I genuinely believe that there has been a collective shift of overall wealth towards the older generation at the expense of younger people. I'm not saying pensioners are minted but my first mortgage involved finding 5% deposit on a property for sale at c.£26,500 in 1988. Now typical deposits are tens of thousands. For many, home ownership has been either deferred into late 30s or indefinitely. That's not right.

I can't begin to imagine the insecurity involved in renting. Let's hope legislation is tightened re "no-fault evictions". Whatever happens on 4th July there's a lot to fix. I guess, above all, most people want the return of integrity.

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

That's it in a nutshell, Paul - integrity. We're not stupid, we know that no successful politician is a saint. There's too much wheeling and dealing and compromise required to get to the top. But we'd like to feel that when they get there, they don't regard it simply as a tiresome but useful step to future consultancies/public speaking engagements/book deals/weird 'ambassadorships'/etc etc. We don't want them to see every national crisis as a money-making scam.

Neither do we want them to see it as a way to be King Of The World, complete with Divine Rights.

I love those memes. I don't think I've ever seen a politician so totally devoid of 'people' skills. I know the rich live on another planet but Sunak's in a whole other dimension. His minders must be tearing their hair out.

If a society doesn't invest in its young people, it's got no hope. If it doesn't listen to its young, it's setting up a whole heap of trouble for itself. I would hate to be starting out now.

Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Paul.

Submitted by Turlough on

I agree with your every word AF, even where you have stooped to use the lingo of the snooker hall.

I reached the stage where I simply couldn't stand living in England so I left. It's what Ena Sharples would have told Minnie Caldwell to do.

During the campaigning for the 2010 general election a man from the Lib Dems (which I understand is slang for Liberal Democrats) stood on my doorstep in Wiltshire and insisted that only a vote for his party could keep the Tories out. I admired his optimism and reluctantly I did as he asked. A few weeks later Clegg formed a coalition government with Pig Boy Cameron and I felt dirty. I saw myself as a traitor to every friend and relative and decent person I had ever known. 

It used to be that if the wrong party won an election things wouldn't change all that much and a few years later your own party would be back in government, whichever side you were on, but sadly that's no longer the case. These days everybody sees themselves as social climbers and voting Tory is more of a status symbol than ever before. The only way that other parties can get into government is by offering a form of watered-down Conservatism so now we (actually not we, but you) are faced with five years of a poor imitation of Blair's government (which had its good points but don't mention the Iraq war).

Brexit demonstrated to me how the seeds of civil wars are sown. I wouldn't and couldn't ever display hatred or aggression towards the leave people but I can never take them seriously or respect them, let alone live amongst them.

And there's the xenophobia which is everywhere in England and which formed the basis of Brexit. White English people always disagree with me on this point but how would white English people know? Despite my Yorkshire accent I am half Irish (my spit-in-a-bottle DNA test said I am 69% Irish, 31% Scottish and 0% English) so when I was living in England with my Leeds tongue, people thought it safe to tell their awful Irish jokes and get in their little digs in front of me. It's nothing... it's only banter... but it's every bloody day. Bulgarian, Polish, Italian, Caribbean  and Asian friends told me they would hear the same sort of things only much worse. There is discrimination everywhere, especially in rural areas where there has usually been fewer people of other ethnic origins for Brits to come in contact with and realise that Johnny Foreigner is a human being just like the rest of us. And if Johnny Foreigner lets himself get involved in crime, is he the only person guilty of this? It gets overlooked, particularly by the Tory-biased, xenophobic media, that the natives of England are quite capable of breaking the law too. . 

I felt very uncomfortable to the extent that I had to leave the place. Bulgaria where I am now is a poor, backward country and far from being perfect but it is improving all the time whereas Britain has been going backwards for at least fourteen years. I my move planned a year in advance but it delights me that, purely by coincidence, the day that I left England forever was the day after the result of the Brexit vote was announced. I was on a very early flight so it appeared that I hadn't even waited twenty-four hours.

The British political situation today is a mess but I always remember something my dear departed father-in-law said to me long ago during a previous political mess. He said, 'No matter how bad you think the Labour Party is there will always be within its ranks at least a few politicians who care about ordinary people. But in the Conservative Party, absolutely nobody cares about ordinary people.' 

Well that's my rant (abridged). Good luck on 4th April. Houses are cheap in Bulgaria if you're interested.

Hasta la victoria siempre.

Turlough

Submitted by airyfairy on

The Coalition was one of the biggest political sell-outs in our recent history. I still can't fathom how Clegg ever thought he was going to hold any of the reins in that set-up.

I'm white English and I agree with you about the xenophobia! I don't think it's a trait confined to these islands, but we are very accomplished at our particular brand of it. When I was young and optimistic I used to think that if we could just reach across the divides etc etc all would be well because surely people would realise we have more in common than divides us. That was a lovely dream. There's one point of view that says governments encourage xenophobia because a common enemy stops us tearing each other apart. I'm more inclined to believe they do it to stop us tearing the government apart. The problem is, people get a bit bored with one common enemy after a while and so you have to keep finding, if not new ones, then variations on a theme. Bored with Islamophobia? Oh look, there's some Muslims IN SMALL BOATS.

I haven't totally lost faith in the old place. I love the city where I live, for all its faults, and I cling on to the hope that we can stop the rot spreading. Given what's happening in the rest of Europe, I will take heart if we do elect a government that is not a bunch of right-wing thugs, although I'm not over-optimistic about the future. Those demagogues are indeed learning.

Thanks for reading and commenting, Turlough. I hope your corner of Bulgaria is recovering from those awful storms.

Submitted by Turlough on

I suppose we can take consolation from the fact that the predicted outcome of the general election will represent a slight shift towards the left, which is a refreshing change from what's going on across most of Europe.

Bulgaria's just had a general election that nobody won... yet again. So they're trying to form a five or six party coalition... yet again. Which probably means we'll be having a general election before the end of the year... yet again. The old Pools Panel that used to sit when bad weather messed up British football would do a better job of choosing a government than the Bulgarian electorate.

And storms... recovering slowly. Our two cars and our roof were write offs and our garden could perhaps be described as post-apocalyptic. But physically we're untouched and we're in a much better situation than many others, so we don't complain.

Many thanks for asking. 

Turlough

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

oh my goodness Turlough - your poor cars and garden! that is some storm to write off a car! Very glad you and P are ok though

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Oh Turlough, so glad you and P (and I hope the animals) are in one piece.

Re your earlier comment about Ena and Minnie - I would have paid a considerable sum to see Ena take on any of our present politicians. There would be nothing but bones and the odd lump of flesh left.

Submitted by Turlough on

“Well sup up an' shut up!” she'd have said to Sunak.

Turlough

Submitted by David Kirtley on

I think you have written a very relevant and insightful piece on the subject of the election and Britain's situation. As you say the party political debates are rather dull and are full of platitudes and promises. Your article, on the other hand, kept me interested to the end! I think youmay be right that this probably is a really crucial election. It may be a rare chance to start to turn the decline of so many things in our society around, but I do think it is going to be very difficult. If you don't mind I would like to share it onto my facebook for others to read, not that many people read my facebook posts? Well said.

Submitted by airyfairy on

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, David. I'd be honoured if you'd like to share it. I feel we have all become so weary over the last few years, what with one thing and another. Like you, I am hoping that we can start to make a few changes but, as you say, it will be a long process.

Thanks again for engaging with my little rant!

Submitted by celticman on

I hate the Tory scum. simple. 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

You see, you ought to be training our politicians, celtic - straight to the point, no obfuscation!

Thanks for reading.

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Great rant :0) It really seems like the Tories are being sabotaged from inside, doesn't it? Perhaps one of the civil service cuts was on brainy advisors, or maybe they got too entitled for common sense?

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Thanks for reading, Di. I think they started to fall for their own PR, the natural party of government and all that. Thought they could do literally anything and get away with it. We still haven't had the election yet, of course, so there is still a chance they're right! I still don't take anything for granted.

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Story of the Week - Congratulations!

It's also our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day

Please share/retweet if you enjoy it too

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Oh, thank you!

Submitted by Ewan on

 you have been reading my mind, or at least what's left of it.
Blame the other, that's the answer to everything, some people seem to think.
It's absolutely insane that people earning good money cannot afford a home, that they cannot buy one, because the rent is so high they'll never save enough for a deposit, that's if they can actually afford to rent.

GAAHHHHHHH!

Oh yes, forgot. Well deserved accolades.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Thanks, Ewan. It certainly is blame the other. I had a conversation with someone the other day who thinks minimum wage is the problem. It's too high, apparently. Destroying businesses. The boats too, of course, destroying everything else, but mainly minimum wage.

If the Tories are booted out (if, not when, I really don't take anything for granted) I think I'll feel the way I do after flu or Covid or something. You feel better because the infection has gone, but you know it's going to be ages before you're anything like your usual self again.

Submitted by hudsonmoon on

I wilI vote . . . I hope everybody will always be arsed to do that. I hope so, too, Jane. As you're aware, we here in How the fuck did we get so off course America? are in a similar boat. Only our boat seems to be more full of shit than yours. (I'm sure you won't mind me taking bragging rights.) I dread next week's debate. I fear Biden will look a fool, and it will be the bigger fool who will come out on top. But I will watch and I will vote. And I will try not to be too cynical. 

I feel your pain. It is a shared pain by those who genuinly give a fuck. Maybe we need a new capapaign song. We've had a Pocket Full of Miracles. Maybe what we really need is a pocket Full of Fucks.

Well done, here, Jane. You're a force to be reckoned with. x

Rich

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

I willingly concede bragging rights on the deranged politician front, Rich. Also, while no-one outside of these shores actually gives a flying banana about what happens here, what happens on your side of the pond will affect us all. We will undoubtedly get to see your debate, and I might watch that one because there is an odd reassurance in knowing there's nothing I can do about it.

As for songs - 'Nowhere To Run' is sounding pretty good at the moment!

Take care, my friend. Thoughts and prayers, and all that x

Submitted by Ewan on

 Let's just tell it like it is and go for Zager and Evans' miserablist banger 'Eve of Destruction'.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Ewan on

 karaoke favourite BTW.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Good one! I was thinking 'Eve of Destruction' too, (although, ahem, that was Barry McGuire, Zager and Evans were 'In The Year 2525) or Bowie's 'Five Years', which is about the right timescale. Alternatively, we could go with the big promise of Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows. And hallucinogens.

Submitted by hudsonmoon on

On second - or third - thought. I'll go wit lh the Bryd's America's Great National Pastime. That about sums it up. 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

There is one by Green Day that comes to mind - but you know I love you Rich, and I don't want to sour transatlantic relations.

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