I didn’t vote in the local elections. Did you? Not that I mind either way, why would I? It’s not as if I’m the type to judge people without having all the facts. If you did vote then I totally understand – you wanted the politicians to know exactly how you feel about Brexit and the sorry, sad state of both the nation and those that claim they have a clue how it all works. And if you didn’t vote then I totally understand – you wanted the politicians to know exactly how you feel about Brexit and the sorry, sad state of both the nation and those that claim they have a clue how it all works. Either way what yesterday’s results have really done is simply shine a light on the rotting corpse in the cellar that is the political health of the ‘United Kingdom’. In fact it’s really the corpse of jolly old England we’re here to discuss; I don’t want to delve into the DUP at the moment, they’ve been a very poor investment.
What I find, in my eternal ignorance, most astonishing is the enormity of the numbers. I really didn’t know we had so many councils and councillors. To be honest I’ve never really give any councils other than my own a second thought. To be honest I don’t think about my own council either. I think, I think……. that our local councillor must be the chap who keeps popping up in the local newsletter but I couldn’t possibly vote for him because he looks like a frightened toad in a suit. A bad suit. I only ever flick through the local newsletter to see if anything interesting happens near us and the result is almost always a resounding no. And if something interesting does happen it usually happens before I read the newsletter and so it wasn’t worth worrying about anyway.
I’m drifting a bit, sorry. ‘The wife’ is doing a rather good job of knitting and making lemon marmalade at the same time and I’m sort of watching the snooker and writing this, fits and starts and all that. So the numbers are quite startling. How on earth did the Conservatives manage to lose 1,334 councillors on Thursday? Where did they put them? That figure seems enormous, an awful lot of people to just lose track of. At least they had assumed the worst and braced themselves for a hit, albeit not the hit they were expecting. They were expecting a slap across the face, perhaps accompanied by a bit of finger wagging. Instead they were given a bloody good kick up the backside by an enormous, muscular silverback gorilla, perhaps after a substantial run up. And they deserved it, they’ve been crap.
Labour on the other hand were so deluded that they actually thought they would gain from these elections, and it is this level of not having a clue about anything that tells you all you need to know about the vast empty space which occupies Jeremy Corbyn’s skull. I suppose in their defence they only lost 82 seats, which is a lot fewer than 1,334 but when you’re expecting a bowl of ice cream and get served a bowl of dog shit instead you’re definitely going to sit up and notice. Whether you like it or not Labour’s hands have been bloodied by all this Brexit mess and so they must make their own sacrifices. But one councillor’s loss is another’s gain so I suppose I should be fair handed and look beyond at the new political landscape that this seismic fart has unveiled. I suppose.
The big winners (per se) are the Liberal Democrats who were last seen choking on their own vomit, splayed out on a stained sofa in a crack den just outside Ipswich. They’ve managed to pick up 703 seats but anyone who thinks this is more than a hollow victory is a swivel-eyed clown. The Liberal Democrats must remember that at the last general election they were dry humped and left for dead and I’m afraid that Vince Cable is certainly no man to lead them back to anything resembling respectability; why would you want to live in a country run by a man named Vince? No, the only reason they gained seats is because almost everybody who decided to be tough and stick it to Labour and the Conservatives also realised that they weren’t quite ready to vote for the Green Party or ‘others’ and so just slapped a cross on the next least limp prick they could identify before shuffling out of their local Scout hut and going home to cry.
And let’s be frank – the Green Party couldn’t even win a box of tissues at a tombola on a national level because they have no workable policies beyond saving the whale, banning unhealthy things and making dogs wear solar panels. The collected ‘others’ are just a jumbled bag of jokers, curtain twitchers, tits and racists; people more concerned about the perils of living next door to a Muslim or the colour of the fence outside their nearest railway station. Speaking of jokers, tits and racists we can at least all unite in glee that UKIP have taken another cock up the arse and managed to lose 145 seats, though that does beg the question – how on earth did UKIP still have 145 seats to lose? Do some people still think they mean anything? UKIP will always be Nigel Farage’s soiled nappy; baking in the sun and attractive only to flies, maggots and thick seagulls.
So, there we have it, a summary of the local elections that actually says what it means. You can have all the pundits and experts you want, stood out in Parliament Square or being grilled on Newsnight, but what you definitely won’t get, and certainly not from the politicians themselves (who are now all talking about pulling together, just as the dinghy sinks beneath the waves) is the brutal truth which is that the whole thing, the political thing, is an absolute disgrace and an almighty fucking mess and if the rest of the world is laughing at us and crying for us simultaneously then that’s what we deserve. Brexit or no Brexit, deal or no deal, Theresa or not, I really would love to not care less but it’s my country and look, look all you politicians, look what you’ve done to it.
G B Hewitt. 04.05.2019
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 