so far, so good
I didn’t realise that up until the mid 60s, the ballot paper in general elections displayed only the candidates’ names, not their party affiliation. The idea behind this was that it actively encouraged voters to find out more about their prospective honourable parliamentary member and that you would then genuinely place your X for whoever you thought would best represent you in the corridors of power, an individual as opposed to a political party. If you wished to vote for a specific party, then you at least had to know which party the candidate was aligned to.
American statesman and third president of the US, Thomas Jefferson, reminds us democracies get the governments they deserve and I reckon it’s not too much of a stretch to include the campaign, the level of debate and the candidates themselves in that belief. Contrary to the much-reported “are you two really the best we’ve got?” question I do think Sir Keir and Rish! were both relatively honest, sincere individuals but in the recent past we, the electorate, have chosen an inveterate liar whilst rejecting one who ate a bacon sarnie in a mildly weird manner and many more who refused to distill complex arguments to soundbites and three letter acronyms. Mind, having enjoyed soooo many ‘Portillo moments’ last week (Therese Coffey was my personal favourite. Oh, and Jacob Rees Mogg hearing his fate standing next to a candidate wearing a baked-bean balaclava.) I can’t fault Joe Public’s current political taste too much!
Admittedly, Sir Keir did not sweep this nation off its feet. Campaigning on a minimalist ‘change’ platform carefully designed to keep our expectations low, Labour won because it was not the Tories and because, in reality, it appeared not very different from them. Notwithstanding, the voters handed them a resounding victory and, ignoring the footie result and recent events over the pond, the mood of the moment is one of hope and expectation for a better Britain.
It’s still early-days and I’m sure we’ll see gaffs, missteps and feet-in-mouths a plenty but I remain optimistic for our new arrivals and wish them every success. We are all well aware of the massive issues (local, national and global) that are careering down the tracks towards us and I am looking forward to a sincere, serious and in-depth debate, across all parties and strata of society, in attempting to address them. Fingers’ crossed. Also, over the next couple of months I too am going to have a nosey at some of these issues and will try and figure out how we got where we are and what those now in the know may have to do to try and solve them.
