Feverishly Elective: The Feckoning

Well, here we go again.

After spending the best part of a year assuring the Great British public that now was not the right time for an election - that the nation had to come together behind Brexit, rather than be pulled apart by another vote - Theresa may has called for another vote.

*sigh*

I'm still running the ins and outs of this through my head, and struggling to find where I stand on it, but I'm currently leaning slightly towards the positive.

Let's start with what will happen on the 8th of June: the Tories will win, May will (erroneously) claim a mandate from the people, and Jeremy Corbyn will be out of a job.  All of which, of course, is why she's done it.

While I started out with a (relatively) high opinion of Corbyn, that has flagged of late.  It's a rare thing to find a principled politician these days, and rarer still to find one who'll stick to those principles, but that's not enough.  Shallow as it may sound, a leader must have some presence; some charisma.  They must be able to convince others of their way of thinking, and that's not Jeremy Corbyn.

That said, it would have helped to have had his MPs show him even a modicum of backing, rather than plotting against him from the moment their own supporters gave him the position.  While Corbyn may not be a great leader, responsibility for the current state of the party rests firmly with those MPs who'd rather cling to D:reams of the glory days of the late 90s, than deal with the present, and acknowledge a need to move on.

I don't believe Corbyn could have ever won an election, but had his MPs not been so focused on castrating their own party, they may have at least closed the gap on May and the Tories.

That said, the Conservative Party's footing isn't nearly as stable as May thinks it is.  Yes, they've comfortably won a couple of local elections recently, but those were in constituencies that voted heavily for Brexit, and are no doubt enamoured by her all-or-nothing approach (as self-destructive as that is).  National opinion, however, has shifted somewhat since the referendum, with people becoming aware of what Brexit actually means, and the impact it is having and will have.

Not only is the pound clinging desperately to the u-bend, having been dropped in the crapper by the result, but our desperate need for trade-deals will keep it there until it can either clamber up the huge pile of excrement we're finally able to negotiate, or it's flushed into the sewer with nothing but America's meagre droppings to sustain it.

Speaking of the good ol' US of Aw crap, what's he's done now?!, that particular 'special relationship' is also likely to cause May an issue or two on the campaign trail.  Fearing our being cast adrift from the EU and its myriad trading partners, dear Theresa has taken every opportunity since November to plant her tongue firmly in the wigged tangerine's rectum in a display of such hurl-inducing fawning, even George W's prize poodle Blair looks restrained by comparison.

Add to that a crumbling NHS, a widely criticised obsession with Grammar Schools, repeated attacks on the poor and disabled, and telling the Scots that she knows better than them what they want, and any illusions of a free ride look increasingly delusional.

Unfortunately, the party and its leader's demonstrable ineptitude doesn't change the fact there's currently no one to challenge them.  Aside from Labour's obsession with marrying bullets to feet, the Lib Dems are still rebuilding after giving David Cameron carte blanche with a sledgehammer to their foundations, UKIP have achieved what they set out to achieve, and are now struggling to convince anyone they're still relevant, the Greens are enjoying 1980s levels of popularity, and despite being, for all intents and purposes, the Tories' only functioning opposition, geographical restrictions mean there's only so much the SNP can do.

So what's the point of even voting?

The point is that is exactly the question May wants us all asking.  If we're too busy lamenting the lack of a viable opposition to bother voting for any of them, then that will become the reality.  That's not to say everyone should vote Labour just for the sake of it, because that's the flip side of the same problem: if they don't like one, they vote for the other, and regardless of which wins, we're left with a self-indulgent ruling party, and a self-destructive opposition.

The problem with our political system isn't the number of supporters for one or the other, but the number of people who support neither, but see only the two options.

If everyone voted, and everyone voted based on policies, rather than old ideologies or attempting to back a winner, then we'd see a significant shake-up of the political landscape.  And while that might not solve any of our problems, it will at least put us on a path to solving them by showing all parties that if they're not good enough, we'll vote for someone else.

That might seem obvious, but the Tories have gutted our industry, crippled our NHS, demolished our education system, disenfranchised the poor and needy, are jumping into bed with a schizophrenic nuclear-weaponised five year-old engaged in a pissing context with a schizophrenic nuclear-weaponised ten year-old, all-but destroyed our economy and only ever help those who can already comfortably help themselves, and they're set to win a third general election!

May might get everything she thinks she wants out of this election, but that doesn't mean we can't lessen her standing, and make this a challenging few years.  Then we can finally look forward to a decent fight in 2022.

We just have to take the opportunity.