An Embarrassing Election

In 2 weeks’ time the people of the UK will have a new prime minister. It is almost certainly going to be Sir Keir Ladycock Starmer.

I can’t vote for him (or his party) because he thinks things should be longer, stronger, and harder. But enough of his thoughts about women with penises, what was his view on things like lockdowns, masks, social distancing, business and school closures during covid?

Pretty much the same. He’s the PornHub version of what the current government did - he argued that the idiotic things we did during covid should have been longer, stronger and harder.

I haven’t yet had the, erm, ‘pleasure’ of some random bod knocking on my door and telling me why I should vote for their party and why said party is going to turn the UK into some kind of shining paradise that is the envy of the rest of the world, but my first question is going to be

“In the event of another covid-like pandemic, what measures would you implement? Would you do the same things we did for covid?”

There are still plenty of people in the UK who think that the whole covoodoo farce was the right thing to do. There are plenty of people who think the vaccines saved millions of lives. It would be interesting to see the overlap between those who think this and those who think that women can have penises.

I can’t claim to have my finger on the pulse, but what I’ve found fascinating over the last few weeks within my fairly small circle of acquaintances are the following 2 things

1. There’s almost no enthusiasm whatsoever for this election, or for any political party

2. Even those who have been staunchly Labour, or staunchly Conservative, in the past, are talking very positively about the Reform party with some outright declaring they’ll vote Reform as the best option out of some pretty dreadful choices

If this kind of sentiment is more widespread, and I believe it is, then the Reform party might well confound the polls. The polls are a bit of a mess, but some have put the Reform and Conservative parties in more or less equal 2nd place with around 20% of the projected vote each. Others put Reform’s share much lower at something like 12%

Who knows what’s going to happen? It could be very interesting. I suspect Reform will beat the Conservative party but, because of our shitty electoral system they’ll end up with only a fraction of the seats. If Reform get around 25% of the vote, and beat the Conservatives, and I think both of these are a definite possibility at this stage, they will not get anything like 25% of the seats in Parliament.

That could, in itself, be a very interesting result. We could have an opposition party who, in effect, have not been voted into that role. I think a lot of people, already angry enough at the shitshow that is traditional UK politics, are going to get a whole lot angrier.

With Labour’s victory a foregone conclusion I suppose I’d best read their ‘manifesto’ at some point to see what abject misery they have in store for us after the abject misery of the last decade or so of Conservative government.

In one sense, it’s almost pointless voting at all. Politicians have almost no power against The Blob™, the huge system of civil servants, non-elected bodies, and quangos who really hold the power. It doesn’t matter what radical new (and good?) ideas these politicians have, they have to get them past this stifling mass of tedious tits who will block them at every turn if they don’t like the new policy proposal.

It’s like trying to swim in shit. Actually it’s more like trying to swim in frozen shit.

In my view the Reform party are right, what is needed is radical reform. Of everything. Of the way government operates and the regulatory and bureaucratic straightjackets it has constructed for itself over the last few decades.

Even were the Reform party to be voted in (not going to happen) they would not be able to implement their changes as they would like.

It could all be pointless for another reason anyway. The world seems, inexplicably, inching towards a major global war. For some unfathomable reason there are many who seem to be itching for a full-on war with Russia.

I’m not sure that Putin’s marauders are going to be defeated by hitting them with pride flags or shouting pronouns at them, but it’s probably what our militaries do best these days.

In 5 years’ time, if we haven’t all blown ourselves to kingdom come in the meantime, I’ll probably be begging. I hope SubStack will introduce an “aid package” subscription button alongside their usual subscription button.