Day One

They’re off. Some have been for years. Now they all are in a race for your vote, with the option to reject it if they don’t like it. Just three more days of suits, respectable auras and, in the case of this Parliament, unsavoury smell, and MPs will turn from paragons pontificating to plaintiffs pleading. For votes. Elections are mysterious things. They never go the way politicians and pundits want them to.  So no predictions (yet) but let’s look at expectations instead.

Boris hopes for a boost after screwing the semblance of a deal out of an intransigent EU. He’d like a 1979 result. He won’t get it .He’s not running against a clapped out Labour government but his own party in power.  Farage will split the Brexit vote and we in the northern tribe will (mainly) stay loyal to Labour. Another 2015 is the best he can hope for.

Having snatched defeat from the jaws of disaster in 2017 Jeremy hopes that an election he didn’t want will carry him to victory though since then he’s fucked up on Brexit, crumbled under the Blairites and lost the Scottish base on which Labour governments were built. Another 1923 could be more likely but  today’s picky Liberals won’t support a Labour government.

The Liberals need another 2010 but Swinson is no Clegg People know what 2010 led to, Bollocks to Brexit is no clarion call for democracy and makes the rest of the Liberal package- PR, cannabis, and votes for any group that might vote Liberal, all look irrelevant. Britain’s key problem is economic. The Libs have no policies on that but they’ll form a coalition with anyone except Jeremy, Boris and Nicola which leaves only gabbler Lucas. Jo will play Greta Garbo (with NHS teeth) while her party reverts to their traditional role as a bucket for malcontents to spit into; a minority role even though there are more malcontents around.

The SNP should hold their position in Scotland but despite the oratorical triumphs of Blackford, the Ross Demosthenes, their kilted crusade has become defensive. Two fifths of Scots voted Brexit, the Salmond case is coming up and independence is more mirage than miracle if it means a customs border with England and  Euro bawbees.

As for the Greens, the political arm of Veganism, they’re too virtuous for the muddy world of first past the post. Still they’re happy being  misunderstood  and rebelling against extinction. So it doesn’t matter.

BritaIn needs a strong government with the majority to govern. At this stage with the choice between two main parties neither of which electors particularly like, the coming election looks unlikely to produce that. Most elections end up differently to the way they start out but that unpredictability also means they can end up the way they begin too. In a mess. The electorate says “another fine mess you got us into” to the politicians. Now they have the chance to do it to themselves.