Election 2019 - The man who didn't lose

Following the general election in which his party secured less than 33% of the votes of British electors, the still-there-but-apparently-going-soon leader Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that he won all along really. His party may have lost 42 seats to the Conservatives but Corbyn clearly believes that he triumphed, winning the arguments and the love and admiration of the British people as well. All those people who, when canvassed, said that he was the biggest reason why they could not support Labour, well they were on his side all along, weren't they? They were just joshing, playing the old pretend-to-vote-for-someone-else game to the hilt.

Mr Corbyn is expected to visit Buckingham Palace in the near future to kiss hands with the Queen, prior to taking office as prime minister, receiving the Nobel prize for all-round brilliance, supervising peace negotiations in Korea and launching Britain's bid to host the 2030 World Cup, the 2032 Olympics and the Eurovision Song Contest. At least, that's what he believes.

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Election 2019 - The Aftermath

A Conservative landslide, Labour humiliation and the leader out, LibDems marginalised and the leader out, "British Lion Roars" according to the Daily Express.

And yet - in England the Conservatives won only 47.2% of the vote. Across the UK, 43.6%. The nation as a whole did not endorse the government of our local mp B. Johnson.

In Scotland the result apparently justifies fresh calls for a referendum on independence but the SNP secured just 45% of the vote and manifestly do not have a mandate for it.

Funny business, politics.

I also noted that apparently Labour had sent "hundreds" of supporters to my constituency, Uxbridge and Ruislip South. What on earth were they doing? If each knocked on just 50 doors a day over a three day period that would be a minimum of 30,000 dwellings comprising the whole of the constituency. Nobody knocked on my door, I saw none of them in the street, there is not a single Labour poster to be seen (actually damn few for any party) and even yesterday, in Uxbridge town centre, they were invisible. That has to be the least effectual canvassing in electoral history. Not that a decent effort would have made any difference, of course.

We now have a government with enough support to enable it to pass its legislative programme but whether they have the faintest idea what they actually want to achieve is anybody's guess, since the only concrete ideas so far to emerge is the mantra "Get Brexit Done" with all the negotiations still to be done, and "supporting" the NHS which the Conservatives have happily run down in the past ten years.

However if one good thing came out of the election it was the sudden elimination of the Ulster DUP from the national scene. No longer does the government need to rely on their handful of seats ( now reduced by a couple including their leader at Westminster). This may well be a significant step toward the reunification of Ireland because the Conservatives have nothing to lose by abandoning Ulster behind a new customs barrier. Equally, having been wiped out in Scotland they may feel the same way about the Union. We shall see.

Election 2019 - Super Saturday

The last week of the campaign and no less than four election leaflets were thrust through my letter box this morning. The only one received in the preceding week was from Labour (No idea about Brexit); today we had the LibDems (stop Brexit), UKIP (even more Brexit), the Labour party candidate for Ruislip-Northwood (easy mistake to make as the constituency boundary is just a few doors up the road) and a very strange one from one William Tobin,  a UK citizen living in France who is unable to vote here but is able to stand (almost certainly stop Brexit).

Everyone is going to put more money into the NHS and schools and fight for local issues (apart from the incumbent whose inability to keep promises is now legendary in these parts) and there is little else to choose between them, although the UKIP candidate includes "sack liar politicians" as one of his themes. I wonder if this is anything at all to do with dear Nigel, the man who leads a party but who is not actually bothering to stand in case it interferes with his career as a loony right wing pundit in the USA.

In other news, a leading diplomat at our American embassy has resigned because she is no longer able to peddle the government line about how wonderful Brexit will be and the incumbent in our constituency continues to parrot the phrase "Get Brexit done" as an alternative to answering any questions.

As Woody Allen put it in his piece "My speech to the graduates"

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Election 2019 - Here's Boris

My piece a day or two ago, suggesting that the incumbent in Uxbridge & South Ruislip was elsewhere, has been rendered obsolete. I am indebted for this tweet (and to @RuislipManor who retweeted it to me) showing the great man enthralling a vast cheering crowd somewhere in Eastcote, on the eastern borders of his constituency.

A shame that, for technical reasons, the shots of the vast cheering crowd, displaying the "fantastic optimism" for which we are justly famed in this part of the world, are not available on this clip. Cynics might suggest that Mr J was in fact orating to an empty street but I couldn't possibly comment.

Yesterday also saw the first sighting of canvassers. My eye was caught by a flurry of activity right outside my house. I peeped through the net curtains and watched about ten people, each sporting a blue rosette, earnestly consulting clipboards and giving each directions. I assume they were canvassers - they might have been rosette salespeople, working for some ghastly multi-level marketing scheme where each buys rosettes from the person above them in the chain and tries to flog them on but this can probably be safely discarded. No, I think they were Conservative party supporters.

I mentally rehearsed some of the questions I might put, should any be brave enough to essay my drive and ring the bell, especially the one about the man who was going to die in front of the bulldozers at Heathrow right up to the point that he changed his mind; they must have got wind of this because the whole lot suddenly stormed up the road and disappeared in the general direction of the Ruislip woods and the posh houses that surround them. I suppose they might get a warmer welcome there.

Election 2019 - The Calm before the Other Calm

There is very little to report as the general election campaign begins to gear up for the big day. Nationally, the parties are all promising to spend loads of cash and to do things they never did when they were in government. Locally, only the Green party has managed to match the flyer that the Conservatives dropped off some ten days ago; their leaflet is clearly in favour of the environment and then their candidate woffles so badly on Brexit

Has our democracy failed us? This cannot go unanswered.

that I am left wondering how this helps. The party wishes to have another vote but does not say what would happen if the country splits more or less evenly. The rest is wishful thinking.

There have been no sightings of our local MP, one B. Johnson, but I suppose he has more important things to do such as being photographed staring blankly at machinery in factories or kissing babies in a town centre as is traditional at these times.

Nigel Farage (who, utterly inexplicably and not in the least down to the fast vanishing vote for his party, is not actually standing as a candidate anywhere) was interviewed this morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. I don't know what he said because my hand somehow slipped onto the off switch just as he started and then I seemed to forget where it was. Oh, dear. I suppose I could catch up with it on the internet but, would you credit it, I seem to have forgotten how to do that as well.

Election 2019 - The Candidates Step Forward

Living as I do in the prime minister's constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip we can expect a fair amount of media attention over the next few weeks. Which will make a contrast to the past ten days in which just one measly leaflet (for Boris) came through my letterbox.

The pace has certainly quickened today thanks to this announcement of the candidates on Twitter

Two members of the aristocracy are gracing us with their presence. I'm impressed. I shall definitely give one of them my vote, unless I don't. And that's a promise. Guaranteed.

Election 2019 - Boris opens the scoring

The first election leaflet to drop gracefully through our letter box came yesterday.  It was a short one, featuring our well-known MP and occasional Prime Minister, Johnson, B. He appeared in some fifteen pictures inside featuring various locations around the constituency, including one taken outside the very chemist that Mrs C. and I frequent.

Boris made just three simple pledges

1. To respect the views of his constituents: a sort of meta-pledge this, a promise to make promises but, given that this is the man who was going to lie down in front of the bulldozers should Heathrow be expanded, and who then ensured he was out of the country when Parliament voted on it, it is hard to give this one the slightest credence.
2. To put more police on the streets.
3. To get Hillingdon Hospital rebuilt.

Not a single mention of Brexit or any aspect of Conservative party policy.

I shall await the offerings of the other candidates.

Back to the Hustings

Governments floundering without majority support, febrile calls for elections; major policy decisions stymied by many conflicting views; the hope that an election will sort it out - are we in Belgium,  Italy or Israel? No. We are in Britain and the days of looking wonderingly at chaos in other countries are well and truly over.

The Conservatives have cast off many supporters in the hope of retaining the rest; the Brexit party snaps at their heels. Labour still seems unclear whether to stick to its principles or chase the votes of its traditional supporters. Support for other parties is growing but they will still be minorities in what could well be another hung parliament.

Today we are likely to see agreement on holding a General Election (Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act this is required whereas in the old days all that was needed was for the Prime Minister to take the short drive to advise the Queen that he could no longer lead an administration). Opposition parties always claim to be longing for an election but until recently Labour has been rather coy and without its consent Parliament could not be dissolved. That consent is, it seems, about to be given.

As has become traditional this column will endeavour to convey a sense of how it all feels to the ordinary commuter (or ex-commuter) in the street. We begin being fairly confused about the way ahead and it is entirely credible that in some six weeks time we will be even more so.