Blog: Thank You Santa Democracy

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When Election Day dawned last Thursday I was VERY excited. I love an election at any time, but this one had the very special possibility that the CORRECT people might win, and so I had spent the six weeks leading up to it getting myself in a bit of a tizzy listening to every podcast and reading every analysis that I could get my hands on. I'd especially been reading the Electoral Calculus poll which kept saying AMAZING things like the Liberal Democrats becoming the official opposition. This had to led to me doing some enforced CALMING DOWN, and I had to keep reminding myself that as long as the Tories LOST then it was good. "Yes, but what if they only get 30 seats?" said the excited Election Toddler inside me.

ACTUAL VOTING at the actual polling station was, as ever, a great THRILL, even though the impostion of ID felt a bit rude. For the first time ever in my life I voted LABOUR in a general election (I generally vote Lib Dem or sometimes Green, though usually Labour for Mayor etc) because I really like the idea of SENSIBLE NON-MANIACS being in charge of things, and when a political party presents me with someone who likes The Wedding Present as a potential prime-minister it seems CHURLISH not to give them a go.

With that done we went home and settled in for the Exit Poll and I became GRIPPED with an unearthly TERROR. What if this had all been a RUSE and, as in 1992, the bloody Tories ended up winning? I must have got myself QUITE wound up because when the Exit Poll apppeared and it was clear that it was All Going To Be Fine I actually CRIED with relief. My NEURODIVERSITY JOURNEY of the past couple of years has led me to realise that sometimes I feel BIG EMOTIONS without really being aware, and it turns out that I'd been a lot more TENSE and AFEARED of the outcome than I'd consciously realised!

The next bit of the evening was a bit ANNOYING for the first hour or two as everyone kept banging on about how well Reform had done, almost as if they were trying to make out that there hadn't been a MASSIVE LANDSLIDE for somebody else. Still, once the results started coming in I took GRATE delight in watching arsehole after arsehole getting kicked out. I was in contact with various PALS throughout the night, including Mr T Pattison with whom I had shared The Portillo Moment back in 1997, and I gradually became aware that I wasn't feeling QUITE the same sense of EXCITED AMAZEMENT this time around. I guess that's partly because this result had been heralded by all of those podcasts etc, and possibly also because I am now almost exactly TWICE AS OLD as I was then and so less prone to leaping around!

I valiantly stayed up until about 6.15am, seeing THE NEW DAWN while I waited to see what would happen with Liz Truss, but that took so long that I gave up and went to bed. The lovely thing was that this meant I had a SPECIAL EXTRA PRESENT to unwrap the next day as The Worst Prime-minister EVER was as graceless in her exit as she had been incompetent in her premiership i.e. ENTIRELY.

Since then there has been a LIGHTNESS to the universe as WEIRD and WONDERFUL things occur. Not least amongst these has been the appointment of NON-MANIACS to the cabinet. I've got so used to THE WORST POSSIBLE PERSON being appointed to every job, with the clear intent to do THE WORST POSSIBLE THINGS, that seeing Vaguely Sensible People skipping into Downing Street feels like a new age of joy and wonder. I know Certain People will already be saying "Bah! They are all the same" or "Hmm! They are just Tories in different clothing" or something equally dreary and dull, but for now this feels like a change for the BETTER, and it has been an AWFULLY long time since we've had that!

posted 8/7/2024 by MJ Hibbett

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