I’m going to vote for the least shit shit show in a sea of shit
This general election is awful in so many ways that it is hard to fathom just how bad things have got, and how we have found ourselves in this position.
Like so many people I speak to I have no idea who to vote for because not one of the parties comes even close to my values or what I believe is needed to move the country forward.
If we presume that Brexit will happen one way or another I then need to look at each party and consider how they would deliver Brexit and, perhaps just as importantly, how they would run the country. I should also preface this with the fact that I have voted Labour in every election to date and am firmly of the opinion (based on facts!) that Brexit is bad for the country and more importantly for my children. If I hear one more person state how we just need to get out of the EU and then offer no positive reason apart from repeating what certain elites have told them to say I will shoot myself…
The Conservatives
They say you should judge a person by the people they surround themselves with. Well, if that is the case then Boris does not look good because he has assembled a cabinet of liars, charlatans, career politicians and what would appear to be selfish individuals with little regard for the normal British person. As it happens all of those descriptive words could be used to describe Boris himself and his own record is not impressive or trustworthy, and it gets more disheartening the more you look at it.
He gets through by acting like a bumbling fool and by having funny hair, but when you hear the words of those who really know him it is obvious that there is a more sinister personality under the blonde mop of geniality.
This is also the only major party pushing Brexit 100% and for what reason we still do not know. We do know that it will not be good for the country and that for some reason the poorest among us who benefit the least from this party, or Brexit, will likely be voting for them in higher numbers than ever before.
The Labour Party
We have gone back 30 years under Corbyn and day after day a new policy is announced that feels like a style of socialism that we presumed had disappeared.
With the Conservatives pushing further and further to the right, and being a much nastier party than they ever were, we have Corbyn pushing to the left in a way that people like me, a traditional Labour voter, will not stand for. Add to this a crazily vague policy on Brexit which seems to be to get a new deal from the EU (I suspect their patience is wearing very thin by now) and then to put it to a second referendum against a remain option.
I could live with the above option if I thought it was feasible and I firmly believe that 4 years of Labour is much better economically than Brexit. The latter is OK because that is kind of how politics in the UK works; Labour gets in power and fixes the NHS, education and government services, but it tends to leave a debt behind it. The Conservatives then come in and pull everything back to a silly level which eventually means the finances are a bit better, but people suffer (not the people the Conservatives care about of course) through poor healthcare, education etc. And so it goes on and on forever more. You could argue that it works, but for the majority of the time we are in a situation where millions of people struggle.
The Liberal Democrats
In theory the middle ground should be the Lib Dems, but that is not the case and they are largely seen as having no chance of power anyway. Jo Swinson, the leader of the party, recently said that she would continue to work to block a leave result if it happened again in a second referendum.
This is naive in the extreme because it does not sit right with even the hardest of remainers. I would love Brexit to be cancelled today and could live with the tantrums from those who do not understand what it will bring us, but you cannot quell something like this by going too far the other way.
They are the remain party, of that there is no doubt, but how can I vote for a party that is likely to cause even more division than we have now?
There are other parties of course, but they are so insignificant as to not be concerned with and the only one likely to get decent voting numbers is the Brexit Party, but obviously I am not going there.
So, I hate them all which means I then have to look at what happened in the last election in my seat-
Party Votes % ±
Conservative 25,426 50.6 +3.6
Labour 22,969 45.7 +12.1
Liberal Democrat 1,878 3.7 +1.0
Looking at the above it does not leave me with much choice, but to vote Labour. I was thinking it would have to be the Lib Dems as a limp ‘I hate Brexit’ protest, but what would be the point?
Given that the Conservatives are appalling in every conceivable way, I end up having to vote Labour which is a sorry sorry position to be in. How the hell did we end up like this?