I risked the wrath
of the gods of fate and read two non-fiction books in a row, and what a mistake
that was - a likely Labour coalition government (according to the polls)
evaporated with the first exit poll on Thursday to be replaced by a predicted Conservative
coalition. As if that wasn't shocking enough, canny pundits pointed out that
with the Shy Tory tendency who mendaciously lie to pollsters about their voting
habits, a Conservative majority was likely - which is what we ended up with.
I went to Wales to
watch it (reading the excellent Kolymsky Heights on the train there and back),
and thoroughly depressing it was too. The Labour Party appears to be in an
intractable situation now - losing out in Scotland because they weren't
left-wing enough, losing out to UKIP in the north as they weren't addressing
concerns about immigration, and losing out to the Cons in the south as they
were too left wing. How can you
triangulate that? Ed tried, but ended up pleasing no-one. Can't see a way back
from this, and two of the best prospects for leader (Alan Johnson and Dan
Jarvis) have ruled themselves out already. . .
The unpalatable
answer seems to be to move to the centre; Scotland is lost, and in the North we
still have the seats. It turns out I'm exactly the sort of person Labour want
to win over - southern, prosperous, shops at Waitrose and John Lewis. That's
nice, but none of the things that apparently should appeal to me - the
'aspirational' rhetoric which seems to boil down to not taxing or scaring rich
people or big business actually does. If they want my loyalty then start talking about how no-one 'creates'
wealth without a support network of education, health, transport, law and order
and that needs to be paid for - and those who benefit the most should pay the
lion's share - and be proud of it!
In other sad news,
Fred really doesn’t seem to be enjoying the park run any more. He managed two
miles last week before pulling up and only 1 mile last week. He's not 100%, and
I don’t want to push him, so we may have to stop.
