Election 2017: 2 - The Big Yawn

General elections used to be fairly exciting. The parties would present their proposals and leading politicians would battle it out over their ideas and suitability for office. Results could be hard to predict and votes mattered (at least in a number of marginal seats).

This year it seems flat and pointless. The lead between the Conservatives and all other parties is, in electoral terms, huge. In terms of the popular vote it is not - they are on about 38% - but the quirks of the British system means that this guarantees a significant majority in the House of Commons and if a majority of UK voters do not actually support them - well, tough cheese because elections here are not about winning national majorities but simply getting more votes than any one else, constituency by constituency.

Furthermore, the national agenda has been suborned by Brexit. It is like the anti-communist era of 1950s USA. If you voice any disquiets about the rush to leave the EU and cut all ties (the mantra "No deal is better than a bad deal" is how we are being softened up for this) then you may be branded at best a moaner, an anti-democrat and at worst a traitor. Just about any political policy can be framed in terms of whether it agrees with what voters are supposed to have voted for when they chose Brexit, albeit that the referendum did not ask anything whatsoever about policies, only about whether the UK should continue to be a member.

It is a pleasure to be able to record that the French public, in the Presidential election last Sunday, chose by 2 to 1 to put in a pro-European centrist.  Only 21 miles away from us¹ but so very different in outlook. Mind you, something similar could be said about the Scots.

The Conservatives are running on "Strong and Stable" government. I am not terribly clear what the key slogans of any of the other parties are (mainly because I can't be that bothered to find out)². It is a little curious that the British are being invited to re-elect the ruling party to make it stronger, rather than be told they will be better off, or that the nasty foreigners will be kept well away³ . It seems to be having to do with facing down those ghastly Europeans and ensuring that no deal whatsoever is done over anything, because that will really jolly well show them and make them sorry they ever forced us into leaving in the first place, or something. I am still wondering what will happen when the first planeloads of British pensioners, kicked out of Spain at a moment's notice, touch down at Gatwick and they all demand access to the NHS and housing.

Footnotes 
¹ From Dover, I mean. Not from beautiful Ruislip.
² If any election material ever arrives I suppose I might be able to issue an update on this one.
³ Of course this does not apply to dear old Rupert Murdoch and his perpeptual attempts to buy up British broadcasting. Or any rich person who wants to buy up any property they can get their hands on and hide the ownership in a trust based in a country with no extradition treaty with the UK and total commercial secrecy.  Or any offshore trust that wants to do a dodgy deal with a Labour council in London to steal the ground from a much-loved local football club in order to make profits for themselves and their mates back in the Town Hall.