Interesting times

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My eldest Grandson and I stayed up all night, watching the results of the general election. It’s now almost 4.30pm. I still haven’t slept; I’m buzzing from the excitement. My family are getting together for an Indian takeaway in half an hour, to celebrate a comparative victory.

The results for Labour were better than anyone expected. Although they got less seats than the Conservatives, the Conservatives didn’t get enough to achieve an overall majority. They have 328 seats, having lost 12, Labour have 261 seats, having gained 31. The Conservatives plan to form a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party, formed by right-wing racist Ian Paisley in 1971. It appears to have became a little less extreme since those early days.

The smaller parties lost out to tactical voting. It was nice to see UKIP being crushed underfoot, but I’m sad that the Green Party didn’t get more votes. The Scottish National Party had almost all of Scotland after the last election, with 54 MPs. They’ve slipped dramatically down to 35, with some areas plumping for labour, and others going for the Conservatives.

I’m with the Green party, but they had no chance of winning this election; the most we hoped for were a few seats, but I was a card carrying Labourite until the despicable Tony Blair appeared on the scene. I couldn’t continue my membership with him at the helm.

I think Jeremy Corbyn is one of the best things that’s happened to labour since the revered Aneurin Bevan was an MP. I wanted Labour to win. Jeremy achieved the highest vote ever recorded in his constituency of Islington; a wopping great 40,086 (in the last general election he got 20,659 votes, so that’s a an increase of 19,427 votes.) Somewhere in the distance, behind him, were the Conservatives, with 6,871, and the Liberal Democrats with 4,946.

That’s one in the eye for the Blairites who tried to push him out of the leadership. The country loves him, and so do his constituants. He’s a good, fair man, who wants the best for he people of this country.

Theresa May and her Cons have blown it. Political commentators and Conservative associates are pointing the blame for the humiliating result at Theresa May, which seems fair. She ran a terrible campaign, making a lot of slip-ups. Jeremy Corbyn is calling for her resignation, but she says she won’t stand down. The general opinion is that the Conservatives are ruthless cut-throats; she’s blotted her copy book so thoroughly it won’t be long before they dump her.

The Conservative Party should be a laughing stock by now; David Cameron chose to hold a referendum to prove that the people of the UK wanted to stay in the EU, then Theresa May announced a general election, with the idea of proving that the country was securely behind her.

David provided the timber, and Theresa constructed the coffin. Will the next Party leader put the lid on it? We shall see…

The Conservatives are feeling quite sore and tender today. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

These are interesting times….

The Daily Post #Tender

©Jane Paterson Basil

33 thoughts on “Interesting times”

      1. We should be fortunate we live in a democracy and good for you not bad mouthing others. It’s difficult for me! I live on the coast near Glasgow. One of the most underprivileged areas in Scotland and the Tories came second in my constituency for the first time in I don’t know how long… ever? They made a lot of gains in Scotland and I reckon the Unionists were voting them.

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        1. I felt sick for Scotland. I’ve never been there, but my mother was a Scot, and she’d have been very unhappy. I couldn’t believe that so many Glaswegians had voted for self-destruction. To lighten my mood, my Grandson made a weak joke about the voters reeling into the polling stations blind drunk, but he didn’t think it was funny.
          I live in Devon, and our map is awash with true blue. I think Cornwall is the same.
          I didn’t know you had the DUP up there.

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          1. By Unionists I meant people against Scottish Independence voted Tory or labour. I think the DUP will be the end of those chances. Wonder what deals May has agreed to with them? It’s good that you’re grandson has a sense of humour at these times 🙂

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            1. I’m hoping that with the dissent in her ranks, she’ll be hard-pushed to do anything except sit in a corner and cry. It’s about time Scotland was left to deal with her own affairs. Who’d want to be a part of our mess?
              Maybe I’ll campaign to make my flat an independent nation. The first thing I’ll do is apply to become part of the EU. That’ll strengthen my economy so I’ll able to afford to build an NHS hospital in my bathroom 🙂 🙂 🙂

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            1. I can’t remember, but they owned a lot of forestry land, and she had family in Inverness and Aberdeen. She didn’t like talking about her childhood unless she was in the right mood. It had been a strange one, and the hurt had never gone away, but she loved Scotland.

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  2. It’ll catch up with you at some point, staying up all night. I agree, it was great to see JC doing well. He’s come from ‘Oh, the labour party are finished with him in charge’ to turning the party around simply because he understands what the people need.

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    1. Down our way the voters don’t know what they need. I live in Devon; we’re drowning in Tory MPs with not a red flag in sight, and yet hardship and misery are rife. I wish the electorate in these rural areas would look into it, and understand what the different parties stand for.
      It’s just gone midnight – I’ll go to bed soon.

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        1. There were online questionaires which people could fill in to find out which of the parties were most in line with their views. I think that if everyone in the country had filled them in, Labour would have had a landslide victory. I got two or three people to do it, and it changed their votes. They switched from Lib. Dem to Labour.

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  3. just the name IP send violent shudders thru my body 😦
    don’t really ‘get’ your UK politics but the people’s voting world wide seems quite unpredictable because they are fed up … guess we all want action for the poor masses and nobody is stepping up 😦

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            1. Thank you Kate, I’d love to do an interview… you mentioned it a week or so ago, and in between having trouble with laptops, I started work on it, but it came to well over 2,000 words, and I thought that was a bit too long, so I have to edit it…

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              1. I will edit it anyway so do you want me to do that? I always check final article and my intro with you before I post .. 🙂 I might be more objective than you … or it might be vital to your story and still needs including … no word limit on our posts to my knowledge?

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  4. I couldn’t face staying up – suspected it would be the same old rubbish again, the country turning bluer by the day – except here in Bristol, of course, our little spot of red amid the sapphire! I’m like you, Jane, would usually vote Green, but I confess to being swayed by Corbyn, the gradual shift from New Labour back to Old style Labour, the fact that the man is less contrived, less combed and polished than most politicians. That he actually believes in making the country better for all people – proper Labour, in other words.
    I voted Labour and though my other half keeps trying to cheer me up, saying they made great gains, that May has undermind her own mandate as leader, I’m still down about the result. May being undermined won’t stop the Tories eroding the NHS still further, from making more cuts to the education budget so our kids and grandkids will have a poorer, narrower education. It won’t get rid of the bedroom tax or help the folk on disability benefits so hounded and marginalised by a system that would really rather they gave up trying to claim and shuffle off to die somewhere.
    I know it’s a step in the right direction, but I hoped after all the Tories have done to this country over the last few years people might have grown compassion enough to choose another way.
    I’ll get over it. Still smarting though 🙂

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    1. In Devon, the battle is between Lib Dems and Tories. I couldn’t bring myself to vote tactically for an LD who despise, and the Labour guy down here is a Blairite, so it was easy for me to stick to my guns. If I’d been in Bristol I would probably have done the same as you, but I felt sorry for Molly. She worked hard in the run-up to the election, and Greens travelled from all over the place to help her, but in the end it was recommended that the Bristol Greens voted Labour, and it’s good that they did. I just hope that your MP will support Jeremy.
      I had to watch the election – I couldn’t bear the thought of waking up not knowing. In the past, when I haven’t stayed up for it, I’ve woken feeling sick, and the results have made me feel worse. There’s always something cheering if you watch it live. Even when Tony Benn lost his seat, hearing his speech live made me feel a little more positive.

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      1. I know what you mean about waking up to bad news – felt the same way after Brexit, totally sick. I suppose this wasn’t such a shock, just disappointing. At least the Tories haven’t had it all their own way, though I’m still struggling to understand so many Scots voting blue – I’m told it’s a criticism of the SNP wanting a second independence ref, so at least we might still have a UK after Brexit. That’s a cheerful thought at least 🙂

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        1. Brexit… that was awful. It took me months to stop ranting about that… In fact, it doesn’t take much to start me off again.
          Fortunately I’m spending the evening with my green brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew and sister-out-of law. The next few hours are set to be coloured in emerald 🙂

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          1. Ha! Hope you enjoyed your green evening! I find I get more ranty as the years pass – my husband has to reign me in quite regularly. Though I’m glad to say I’ve not gone down the Daily Mail, ‘send ’em all home’ route – quite the opposite, in fact 🙂

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              1. Haha! The right wing press make my flesh crawl – the lack of empathy they instil in their readers is terrifying. It’s a real ‘them’ and ‘us’ attitude and we all know what happens when we start seeing people as ‘other’.

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    1. Yes, it did. I feel sorry for Molly Scott Cato and all the Green campaigners who put so much energy into the Bristol campaign, and the campaigners around the country, but this was a crucial election for the future of the Labour party, and the UK. I hope it’ll take the edge off the Tory madness.

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