I Don't Get It

I'm not going to blog about sewing again this week. Not just because I haven't done any (which I haven't), but because something more important has happened and it's all I can think about. #GE2015. I've never had the courage to write about politics before. I've wanted to. I've drafted things. But I've always been too scared about getting into arguments with people who know better than me, or, well, of just looking a bit silly. Well not anymore.  That all changed yesterday. I don't care if I look daft or naive or people argue with me. I'm angry and I'm disappointed and I feel compelled to write about it. And I'll fight my corner if I have to. I want to do something. I don't know what that is yet. But something. And this is the start.

You'll need a tiny bit of background before I launch straight in. I'm a Labour supporter. I voted Labour on Thursday and I genuinely thought change was coming. I didn't think it was going to be easy but I did think there was a chance. Maybe we'd have to vote against a Cameron Queen's Speech as he tried to cling on to power. Maybe we'd have to rely on the SNP and the Greens to get ours through. But I thought we could do it.

And then the exit polls came in. And then the result came in. And I was crushed.

I DON'T GET IT!

I don't get the SNP landslide. To those who voted for them, what were you hoping for? Was it independence? Rightly or wrongly, at the referendum in 2014 you voted against independence. You can't think that the Tories (who you've let in) are going to be offering up another referendum any time soon? Even with your 56 MPs ... And especially now it seems Scottish Labour are no threat anymore. Or was it the desire for a progressive left wing government? I can understand that.  But, well, that's well and truly scuppered now too. Labour might not be as progressive as you want, but surely a better result would have been a centre left party that could have been pushed further once the Tories were out. Instead we have five more years of this awful right wing agenda. And left wing Scots are left as unrepresented in government as the Labour, Green and Plaid supporters are down here. Which brings me on to my next point...

I don't get a system where the representatives elected by an entire country (that's you Scotland) and the majority of the representatives elected by one of the world's most influential capital cities (down here in London) will not form any part of a majority (all be it a tiny majority) government. We're forever being told that the  the UK is too Londoncentric - that London has too much influence and power. It doesn't feel like it right now. If anything, London shifted further to the left on Thursday. So what do our votes mean? What are they worth? Talking to people down here, it is almost impossible to imagine why others elsewhere would ever vote Tory. Especially after the last 5 years. Perhaps that's why their supporters are all so bloody 'shy'...

I don't get Shy Tories. If you're too ashamed or embarrassed to admit which party you are going to vote for (even to a complete stranger who's trying to compile an anonymous poll) then you are voting for the WRONG party. If you know deep down that voting out of some misguided self interest for the Tories is the wrong thing to do, then you shouldn't do it. Or, at the very least, you should have the balls to admit that you really are 'that kind of person'. Because your coyness makes a difference. I think that the polls published during the campaign, with predictions based on your bashfulness, influenced the results. I don't really think that all of those Scots would've voted SNP if they had realised that it would result in a Tory government. I think they saw the polls and, understandably, interpreted them to mean that a Tory majority was impossible and that their SNP MPs would be able to support (or even improve) a Labour government. We don't have secret ballots in this country to stop your neighbours finding out that you're a mean, selfish coward. We have them to prevent voter intimidation. Sadly they can't prevent voter indoctrination ...

I don't get why so many people still trust the right wing media. Wasn't the awful pantomime of the  phone hacking saga enough to show that these organisations and their all powerful leaders are beneath contempt? Their lies and propaganda are continually exposed, but people keep swallowing their crap! Some have argued that their power is diminishing, but the way I see it is that their reach continues to cross class and wealth divides in a way that social media doesn't (just imagine what a room filled by readers of the Sun, the Times, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph would look like). By its very nature, social media only to shows you the views of people you chose to 'follow' or 'friend'. As such, all it does is reinforce your own views. It was this 'echo chamber' effect on Twitter that gave me so much hope that the result would go the way I wanted. On the other hand, the right wing media promotes the views of a powerful, rich elite who are nothing like you, but who use their vast resources to make you believe that they are. This sort of brainwashing is one of the only reasons I can think that people (or at least people who are not in the top 1% who the Tories actually represent) would ever vote Conservative.

And finally, I don't understand why any former Lib Dem voter would turn Tory. Don't get me wrong, I get why you wouldn't want to vote Lib Dem anymore. After all, they did break that pledge on tuition fees. But what sort of tortuous train of thought that gets you from that to voting Tory. It can't be the principle of raising tuition fees that's got your goat because that was a Tory policy. So in that scenario, voting Tory would make no sense. So it must be anger at the broken promise. Again, I get it! It must have been a low, low blow. But you must realise that the Tories have broken their pledges too. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you : cuts to front-line services; increased VAT; means tested child benefit; top-down reorganisation of the NHS; the abolition of Education Maintenance Allowances; the closure of 566 Sure Start centres;  the abolition of the Future Jobs Fund; and for heaven's sake, whatever happened to "Vote Blue Go Green"?!

So where do I go from here? Two of my initial plans (formulated in a haze of disappointment and tiredness on election night) were to either move to Scotland (not really sure what this would achieve) or to establish the London Independence Party. I was basically fantasising about independence for compassionate,  empathetic, understanding, progressive London and screwing all the self interested Tories in the Home Counties. The bankers and hedge fund managers would need their passports to get into the city each day and they would have to pay a hefty fee for a work visa. I'm so tired of the rest if the country stereotyping Londoners and unfriendly and uncaring. So we're not a bunch of smiling goons embracing strangers each morning on the tube. At least we're actually on public transport rather than each being cocooned in our own horrible, polluting little cars. And this election has shown that do we care about what really matters. We vote for each other, not just ourselves. We welcome others. We're not scared of change. But that's just a daydream borne out of anger and resentment - neither of which are good motivations for anything, least of all a new political movement. So, for now, the best  I can do is stay informed and try to get active. I'll keep blogging about sewing and gardening and lovely things like that because it's really important to share the nicer things in life. But I'm also going to do what I can to fight for electoral reform. And an end to this TTIP thing - which sounds so evil I still can't believe it's real.