Now Is The Summer Of Our Discontent

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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