Okay, it's nearly here, and so I'm just going to talk politics one more time, and this is it for a bit, I promise.
This has been the least edifying electoral campaign in living memory, and it's been a struggle to rise from the mire. Claim and counter-claim, smears and lies, armies of bots, rancour, bile, general unpleasantness on all sides. It's very very easy to throw your hands up and go you know what, I'm sick to death of all of it.
And I am, but I'm still going to vote. And I'm going to vote Labour.
I'm not going to pretend that this isn't something I have some reservations about, but I have greater reservations about the other parties (bar the Greens, and if it wasn't so important, I'd seriously consider them, but this constituency is a straight fight between red and blue, and I'm absolutely fucked if I'm helping a Tory get in).
I'm voting Labour because it's absolutely vital that the Conservatives don't win, as they seem depressingly on course to do. Their campaign has been horrific, without any major policy announcements beyond repeatedly barking "Get Brexit done". They have blustered, threatened, lied and then said they don't care when they've been caught out. They've been assisted by a complicit, client media which has simply repeated their bollocks verbatim. The Prime Minister has repeatedly hidden from any sort of scrutiny, because he knows that he can't stand up to it. It's been like watching the election of Trump, hit doesn't seem to matter how appallingly he behaves, he continues to get away with it. He is the most amoral, venal and corrupt figure to hold the highest office in the land since the 17th century. In hock to fossil fuel interests, indebted to the Russian oligarchs who pour money into conservative coffers, unable to say how many children he has. He is the post truth Prime Minister, breezily lying and obfuscating and yet sailing on, untouched and untouchable, every time he's found out, as he is, over and over again.
I'm voting Labour because it feels like a last chance to arrest the decline of public life. The argument that only the Tories can fix the effects of nine years of Tory rule is patently absurd. Society has fallen apart on their watch. Sajid Javid's inability to read a graph showing the increase in homelessness is a symptom of their inability to understand what they're doing to the country. More people are in poverty. Food banks have proliferated. The national debt has spiralled. This in the fifth richest country in the world. It's unconscionable.
I'm voting Labour because under this administration, the rightwards lurch has brought the fascists back into the Tory fold. Any conservative with pretensions to centrism has been purged. Ask yourself why Heseltine, Major and Clarke, who all served under Thatcher, for goodness' sake, won't endorse the party. Then ask yourself why vile hate-mongers like Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins do. Ask yourself why Nigel Farage has so meekly parked the Brexit Party out of the Tories way.
I don't wish to descend too far into hyperbole, but the thought of a Johnson administration is not a pleasant prospect for anyone bar the rich or those who are blinded by Brexit. With most of the Tories more flexible thinkers ousted, the country is left in the hands of a selection of third-rate intellects. A chancellor who sold derivatives for Deutsche Bank before the '08 crash. An Education secretary who was sacked for leaking military secrets to the Daily Telegraph, a Prime Minister who MI5 did not trust to give him intelligence clearance when he was foreign secretary, and whose stupidity and hubris has led to an innocent woman suffering in an Iranian prison to this day, a health secretary who has been caught out in so many lies in the last two weeks that I've lost count.
The outright lies of being able to leave the EU with a deal are designed to crash the country out with no deal, leading to a bonfire of workers rights and environmental legislation. In an era when governments should be straining every sinew to tackle the climate crisis, the Tories have nothing to offer. They are the party of the landed interests, of those who make money from exploiting the planet's resources. They are the ones who sniff at children on climate strikes that they should be in school, the same schools that they have systematically underfunded whilst allowing academy trusts to pay themselves and their interests to turn a profit from the education sector without being subjected to scrutiny. They are the party of transferring taxpayer's money to private interests.
Yes, this is a one sided post. I do have some reservations about Labour, but without wishing to underplay them, the thought of a Johnson Government appals me far more. It will speed inequality, enrich the richest, stamp harder on the poorest. Yes, this is biased. I am biased. I've seen how he works, and I loathe him for it. And I've seen what his party have done since 2010, and I hate them for it. So I'll go out and vote, and I hope that you do too. Unless you're planning to vote Tory, in which case just sit this one out, eh?
This has been the least edifying electoral campaign in living memory, and it's been a struggle to rise from the mire. Claim and counter-claim, smears and lies, armies of bots, rancour, bile, general unpleasantness on all sides. It's very very easy to throw your hands up and go you know what, I'm sick to death of all of it.
And I am, but I'm still going to vote. And I'm going to vote Labour.
I'm not going to pretend that this isn't something I have some reservations about, but I have greater reservations about the other parties (bar the Greens, and if it wasn't so important, I'd seriously consider them, but this constituency is a straight fight between red and blue, and I'm absolutely fucked if I'm helping a Tory get in).
I'm voting Labour because it's absolutely vital that the Conservatives don't win, as they seem depressingly on course to do. Their campaign has been horrific, without any major policy announcements beyond repeatedly barking "Get Brexit done". They have blustered, threatened, lied and then said they don't care when they've been caught out. They've been assisted by a complicit, client media which has simply repeated their bollocks verbatim. The Prime Minister has repeatedly hidden from any sort of scrutiny, because he knows that he can't stand up to it. It's been like watching the election of Trump, hit doesn't seem to matter how appallingly he behaves, he continues to get away with it. He is the most amoral, venal and corrupt figure to hold the highest office in the land since the 17th century. In hock to fossil fuel interests, indebted to the Russian oligarchs who pour money into conservative coffers, unable to say how many children he has. He is the post truth Prime Minister, breezily lying and obfuscating and yet sailing on, untouched and untouchable, every time he's found out, as he is, over and over again.
I'm voting Labour because it feels like a last chance to arrest the decline of public life. The argument that only the Tories can fix the effects of nine years of Tory rule is patently absurd. Society has fallen apart on their watch. Sajid Javid's inability to read a graph showing the increase in homelessness is a symptom of their inability to understand what they're doing to the country. More people are in poverty. Food banks have proliferated. The national debt has spiralled. This in the fifth richest country in the world. It's unconscionable.
I'm voting Labour because under this administration, the rightwards lurch has brought the fascists back into the Tory fold. Any conservative with pretensions to centrism has been purged. Ask yourself why Heseltine, Major and Clarke, who all served under Thatcher, for goodness' sake, won't endorse the party. Then ask yourself why vile hate-mongers like Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins do. Ask yourself why Nigel Farage has so meekly parked the Brexit Party out of the Tories way.
I don't wish to descend too far into hyperbole, but the thought of a Johnson administration is not a pleasant prospect for anyone bar the rich or those who are blinded by Brexit. With most of the Tories more flexible thinkers ousted, the country is left in the hands of a selection of third-rate intellects. A chancellor who sold derivatives for Deutsche Bank before the '08 crash. An Education secretary who was sacked for leaking military secrets to the Daily Telegraph, a Prime Minister who MI5 did not trust to give him intelligence clearance when he was foreign secretary, and whose stupidity and hubris has led to an innocent woman suffering in an Iranian prison to this day, a health secretary who has been caught out in so many lies in the last two weeks that I've lost count.
The outright lies of being able to leave the EU with a deal are designed to crash the country out with no deal, leading to a bonfire of workers rights and environmental legislation. In an era when governments should be straining every sinew to tackle the climate crisis, the Tories have nothing to offer. They are the party of the landed interests, of those who make money from exploiting the planet's resources. They are the ones who sniff at children on climate strikes that they should be in school, the same schools that they have systematically underfunded whilst allowing academy trusts to pay themselves and their interests to turn a profit from the education sector without being subjected to scrutiny. They are the party of transferring taxpayer's money to private interests.
Yes, this is a one sided post. I do have some reservations about Labour, but without wishing to underplay them, the thought of a Johnson Government appals me far more. It will speed inequality, enrich the richest, stamp harder on the poorest. Yes, this is biased. I am biased. I've seen how he works, and I loathe him for it. And I've seen what his party have done since 2010, and I hate them for it. So I'll go out and vote, and I hope that you do too. Unless you're planning to vote Tory, in which case just sit this one out, eh?
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