General Election! 2017!

Another week, another chance to vote for the losing team, especially now I’ve moved to the most dismally solid Conservative seat in Britain. For what it’s worth, here are a few thoughts on this bleeding election.

Theresa May is really very cynical

Of course, we expect any political party to game the system as much as possible, but this is hair raising stuff. To spend months stating categorically there won’t be an election only to call one on some ridiculously flimsy pretext requires some chutzpah. But to spend the preceding Easter weekend basically claiming Jesus says everyone’s really behind Brexit takes it to new Machiavellian levels.

It’s about “strong leaders”, not Brexit per se

OK, it is about Brexit. Remember the deficit, the end of our economic days? The NHS? Schools? Nor does Theresa. But we won’t be voting on having another referendum or the type of Brexit we want; I’m genuinely bemused by people saying they’ll vote for whoever offers a second vote. This will result in a handful of Lib Dem gains in a few larger city seats.

No. The vote will be framed, entirely successfully by the Tories, around who is best to lead us through these “difficult times”.

The Tories really are fucking useless

Lest we forget. What a fucking shower leaving the EU is. Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. Brexit means Brexit, Robot Theresa and there is a sense that…. The deficit. The NHS. And on and on.

The end of the Union

Add Scotland to the roll call of incompetence. Scotland isn’t allowed a second referendum but we get a general election? What happens when the SNP retain a huge majority of Scottish MPs? How can anyone argue against a second independence vote then? This is Tory party of England and Wales, not the Union.

The end of Labour as we know it

This was happening anyway, but the election will seal it. Labour has actually been propounding some good, solid social democratic policies recently, but to no avail in these times of “strong leaders”. The right of the party continues to snipe, thinking we just need to rerun 1997 and everything will be OK.

It would be really nice if the left was building a genuine social movement, but alas, I don’t see it. However, what we have perhaps relearned is there is an extra-parliament route to change. We can but hope. These things are hard.