Tag: election

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

And just like that the turkeys voted for Christmas. Or how about the Turkish proverb “The forest was shrinking, but the the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that as his handle was made of wood he was one of them”. The Conservatives won with a majority of forty seats, it was a landslide and Labour were arguably crushed. Previously safe working class Labour seats which had voted Labour for seventy, eighty, ninety years voted Tory. For some reason the residents of Grimsby think that the ruling elite somehow represent and will look after them. It’s a shit show.

I’m also angry. I’ll try not to be bitter or a bad loser but there is no surprise when seemingly the entire media has spent the last four years attacking Corbyn. Crowing, barely able to contain their excitement throughout the election show. Despite spending the last forty years fighting racism they have somehow successfully painted him as an anti-semite racist. He stood up for the Palestinians and was anti-Israeli. That is not anti-semitism. He fought the billionaires with the intention of them actually paying tax and slowing the cash grab that has been going on these last ten years. Unsurprisingly they have been terrified he may actually get in. His social policies described repeatedly as extreme left wing marxism when in fact all they would have done is put us on par with Germany and France. This was him standing on the first real working peoples manifesto for the last forty years and the working class rejected him. It feels like he was the last great hope for change, that’s what hurts so much. It will now get worse.

It turned out people couldn’t look past Brexit. The Tories managed successfully to make it the Brexit election while the rest tried to have some actual policies other than ‘get Brexit done’. 88% of their ads were found to be misleading, Labour – 0%. The Leave and Remain traditional Tory voters continued to vote Tory but the Leave Labour voters switched their allegiances and voted Tory. That was it really. And of course those who switched feel disenfranchised, they’ve been left behind, they have nothing but leaving the EU won’t magically fix what in reality is the result of forty years of neoliberal policies and neglect within Britain by British governments. It’s always the same, we think that by just buying that new car, getting that new job, winning that referendum, we will somehow wake up the following day and everything will be great, our lives will no longer suck but that’s just not how it works. All that’s going to happen is we wake up the next day to find someone ramming stuffing up our arse and placing strips of bacon across our back. We did vote for it after all.

Election 2019

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Today is the big day then as we decide upon the fate of the world. Hyperbole aside with today being voting day in what has become a highly polarised country there is a sense of enormity in the air. Of course walking down the street in my little town it is just another day but it may be worth it just for twenty four hours to shut out the voices whispering the fearful possibility that nobody actually cares and it’s all in the little microcosm bubble of my facebook feed.

The problem is I’m still undecided who I’m going to vote for bizarrely enough. To vote with my heart and support Labour or with my head and vote for the centrist Scottish National Party who are most likely the only ones capable of defeating the current Conservative incumbent in my constituency. However while Scottish nationalism may be a friendly cuddly version of nationalism, it is still nationalism and that is something I try to steer clear of. Labour say all the things I want to hear at least but in my countryside area they don’t stand much of a chance. The Liberal Democrats who are also centrists, but slightly more to right than the SNP, are the more traditional rivals to the Conservatives but fell to the wayside after their disastrous coalition with the Conservatives at the beginning of the decade. A coalition that was disastrous for the Lib Dems and a raving success for the other side tells you all you need to know about supporters of each. Their votes either went Conservative or more commonly to the SNP however it will be interesting to see how the share is now. Certainly that SNP vote has dropped in the Borders, where I’m still registered, as few want independence and so I suspect tactical voting which recommends SNP may actually be inaccurate in the end. In that case can we expect the traditional Lib Dems to make a revival here? I just don’t know as they’ve failed so miserably in the campaign nationally and seem to appeal to nobody.

It pains me to say it but I doubt there is much other that a Tory victory here, nationally though I think predictions are folly. Despite the news channels pretence of balance they seem to be pushing an agenda, but then both sides say that. In any case why not vote for who I really want, my vote will probably be a waste anyway. Either way this election goes, the best part of it is that it has politicised a whole new generation of voters. They complained the young don’t care about anything, the media pushed the same debasing narrative while ignoring the queue’s and printing pictures of pets at empty poll booths. The world is changing, communication is changing and maybe one day narratives and those fighting instinctive change will also change too. What a ride it promises to be.

Change

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

This time next week I’ll most likely be standing in a polling booth. We have our general election next Thursday and it is not too unacceptable to be liberal with the superlatives when describing how massive it is and how it has the potential to shape the future in so many different ways. It is probably also an opportune moment to mention I’ll be putting my theoretical belief in anarchism aside, theoretical because I don’t do enough in life to allow it to become practical, and participate in what is probably a momentary denial of the pointlessness of this whole charade.

This election is massive because we are are standing at a t-junction. Neo-liberalism has done it’s proponents well these last forty years as big business and the wealthy have cemented their authority and wealth but theres not much left to ring out of everyone else who has been left behind. We are faced with the choice between turning right at the junction and electing the Conservatives who wish remove us from the European Union, an organisation I’m not necessarily fond of as it represents the tyranny of centrism, but moves us closer to being a tax haven bent over a table with an American dick up our arse. Turning left and following Labour as together we take a step back to a time before a neoliberal agenda sold everything but which probably should be left in the annuls of a grey and failing 1970s. It does however represent an inclusive compassionate agenda which does actually seem to give a shit about the people of the country and not just as tools to retain power and maybe I am being unfair with the 1970s comment as I agree with many of the policies but perhaps it’s time to look forward, readdress our relationship to capital and left wing notions of full employment and actually revolutionise how we live our lives and exist of a daily basis. We need something radical now more than ever. Something is very wrong, we can all see and feel it and it’s one of the reasons people are going and doing extremes like voting for populists and Brexit. People are rightly pissed off and it’s just unfortunate they don’t realise all they’re doing is voting for the wolf that has already bitten off their legs while convincing them it must have been that racist anti-racist sheep who couldn’t possibly be trusted with his own wool and refuses to give up the self-determining shears as he eyes up your starved withering free arm. The choice of continuing the nightmare that has happened or the fear of one that may happen.

That is why this is such a massive election. Much can and will change because centrism doesn’t work, it just makes everything pretty and people have had enough. However, is that enough and are people really ready and willing for the change in themselves that will be required for anything worthwhile to genuinely actualise. It is unfortunate that people have seemingly lost their sense of direction at this most crucial of moments. It is also debatable whether they ever had it in the first place.