So the closest, most interesting General election campaign for years draws to its nail biting close. No more gaffes, no more surprises, no more X-Factor style “Strictly Come Electioneering”.
Now it’s just the voter that counts. The only opinion poll that actually matters.
Have we learned anything from the last month? Are we better for the experience?
Well … we certainly are in denial. We stand ready to punish any politician who has the temerity to promise us what we must have. Detailed and specific massive spending cuts and tax rises. As we condescendingly and arrogantly look down at Greece we should beware of the pot and kettle!
Well … we have half-lost our virginity! An impossibility which will be rectified in the weeks ahead. We go to the polls tomorrow turned on by the leadership debates and thinking we’re electing a prime minister when of course we’re not. The system must change. Public opinion will ensure it does. Maybe … just maybe … the greatest elected dictatorship on earth will have seen its last days.
Well… there will be more new MP’s in the new parliament than at any time since 1945. It will be fascinating to see just how long it will take for fresh zeal and promised independence to sink without trace into the swamp of party political pork-barrel deal-doing and the world of threatened demotion or promised advancement up the greasy pole of a political career.
Well … there have been some elephants in the electoral room that have been studiously ignored.
Inefficiency in the NHS.
Transport.
Adult illiteracy and innumeracy.
Overseas aid in untied and unmonitored form.
Scottish MP’s being elected by Scots to pass laws over English people when the reciprocal no longer applies.
Well … virtually the entire business agenda of wealth creation. Politicians of all parties have just taken it for granted that the jobs will be there, that the tax will be generated, that the exports will happen. Not one nod to the men and women of this country who risk their money, their homes and their reputations every day to create the wealth and jobs of the UK in hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the land. If you tell people often enough that the money that pays for their local hospital or School grows on trees they will eventually believe you … and allow politicians to act accordingly.
So off to the polling stations the good people of this Nation go tomorrow.
A Nation that stood alone just 70 years ago in the name of freedom. A Nation that was voting when America didn’t even exist. A Nation that sent a generation to die so that they may vote and yet doesn’t value it all that highly and takes it so much for granted.
As Sir Winston Churchill said … Democracy is the worst form of government … apart from all the others!