General Election Fever in the air.

 General Election Fever in the air.

You can hardly contain your excitement any longer. For the last five years you've been holding it all in, just bursting to get out to your local community centre, church hall, school or leisure centre. You know what you've got to do because the announcement was made a couple of months ago and you've had plenty of time to cogitate, reflect, scratch your head and just make the most momentous decision you've made in ages. It's that pivotal point in the year because it's here again and some may be dreading it. Secretly, you've no idea what to do or who to vote for but it is indeed that moment in our lives.

Next Thursday, the good people of the United Kingdom will be converging on the voting epicentres of this great, political bun fight. We are days away from the General Election and it is to be hoped that none of us have got too excited or impassioned because cool heads are required. This is not the time to get all hot and flustered, stressing ourselves out unnecessarily since it is, simply, just another major step forward in the name of democracy and of course our brave soldiers fought and died for the right to vote for the new Prime Minister.

We do the same thing every five years and every time we question the necessity to go through this ludicrous ordeal. The great British public spend five years complaining about politicians but we wouldn't miss this for the world. Or maybe you're just one of the increasing majority who are fed up to the back teeth with those comical talking heads, disillusioned and disenchanted with the whole political system. You just want to close your curtains or blinds and just blot out all of those honourable, well intentioned comments, the hard sell, the propaganda and the good news you've been waiting for goodness knows how long.

You feel totally disenfranchised, left out in the cold, ignored by those political heavyweights who just keep knocking on your door repeatedly with a market research clipboard in their hands. They may be hoping to persuade you that your friendly local MP  is ideally equipped to bring nothing but prosperity, good health, no more taxes on anything in particular and just thousands of pounds in your pocket. They will guide you to the sunny uplands of our lives, proud to be associated with the United Kingdom. Then you suddenly realise that it's all hot air, cunning double speak, a pack of scandalous lies and the most wicked of smoke screens. 

For a moment or two you throw your hands up in horror, appalled and disgusted with the same old stories, the same old politicians with rosettes on their shirts, repulsive statements of the obvious and those same wearisome exhortations pleading with you to vote for them. They have to be a considerable improvement on that horrible shower of individuals who regularly sit in their surgeries just waiting to listen to the people who have always mattered. 

But then we look around us and wonder why we keep doing this to ourselves. Every five years we troop down to our voting booths on a Thursday and assess the number of choices and alternatives. Here are  those lovely councillors, the men and women who write a million e-mails and letters back to their constituents, reassuring them that the cracks in their pavements are being dealt with and those dreadful pot holes in the road are being repaired immediately.

Then you look at the bigger picture. We see the rubbish in our dustbins which hasn't been disposed of for several weeks, the recycling plants containing papers, food and general packaging which have to be removed sooner rather than later. We look at our local doctors waiting rooms and the increasing number of patients who are stretching the NHS to breaking point. We stare angrily at the schools that were built during the reign of Queen Victoria and haven't been touched, modernised nor seen a lick of paint since those golden days.

And then we point accusing fingers at the very people who were elected to serve us in our best interests and despair at the criminal neglect, the sense of grievous abandonment, the dereliction of duty, the pledges they'd kept and then broken. So we just keep bobbing along, trying desperately to pay those extortionate bills and failing to believe those in authority, doubting their wholesome integrity and a reputation that now verges on disrepute. 

For five long and often deeply frustrating years, the Tory party, the Conservative party, have offered up, probably, the most unbearable, intolerable and idiosyncratic Government since quite possibly Disraeli and Gladstone were youngsters. Firstly, Boris Johnson, an old Etonian, public school, old boys network started bumbling, blundering, defending the indefensible and committing so many mistakes that some of us had lost count. It was the kind of leadership or lack of it, that simply rankled with all of us. Johnson was posh, pompous, patronising, completely out of touch with the great British public and just grasping for intellectual arguments that could save his neck.

It didn't help that Johnson, no sooner than he was in situ as Prime Minister, had to confront a globally destructive virus called Covid 19, initially regarded as just a temporary medical bug, an affliction that would go away quickly and everything would be just alright within weeks. Sadly, Johnson's tenure as Prime Minister would turn it into a veritable horror show that seemed to last indefinitely. The week became weeks, the months became years and before we knew it, the world was at war with a virus that became rampant and then catastrophic.

So for months on interminable months, people were dying of Covid 19 or being confined to hospital with often dire consequences. We now saw breathing masks protecting people with the virus, doctors rushing around frantically and screens being pulled around in hospital wards. Meanwhile, back at 10 Downing Street, Johnson was sending out invitations for lavish parties and alcoholic knees ups. Johnson, himself, was briefly incapacitated with Covid 19 and almost died himself. Then, Boris Johnson lost all favour with the whole of Great Britain with some of the most deplorable behaviour we'd ever seen.

After those daily Press conference with his admirably trustworthy medical scientists Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Chris Witty, Johnson would traipse away from the scene of the crime and gave himself permission to break the very laws he himself had just implemented. So ministers  just drove all the way to the other end of the country to visit sick parents when Johnson had just said that you were implored not to go anywhere near anybody for fear of just aggravating the problem a hundred fold. What on earth was Johnson doing or not as be it the case?

Eventually, it all became too much and overwhelmingly insufferable for Boris Johnson. There were those crisis moments when Johnson seemed to crack up under the pressure. On one occasion, in front of very important business leaders, movers and shakers, Johnson lost the plot. Fumbling through his papers and then discovering he'd lost his speech, he resorted to references to a children's book and Peppa the Pig became top of a vitally important political agenda which would affect all of us. He said that over the weekend that his wife Carrie and their baby had visited a children's theme park and had loads of fun.

The end was nigh for Johnson and, after much teeth gnashing, Johnson left the building, disappearing off the face of the map, and then quitting before he had much time to think about it. Johnson was replaced by one Liz Truss. Now, not only was Truss infinitely worse than Johnson but she almost claimed the most unenviable distinction of becoming the first Prime Minister to last for five minutes- well, to be accurate-a couple of weeks. Those humiliating attempts at less than inspired accountancy blew up in her face and poor Truss ended up with egg on her face. She had to go and leave 10 Downing Street because the country was up in arms and furious with her.

More recently and much more up to the present day, Great Britain turned to Rishi Sunak, a man who looked exactly like a computer science university student who knew too much. We then discovered that Sunak had a brilliant academic mind with a career in banking at Goldman Sachs that had to be highly regarded.  His natural aptitude for figures, costs and maths turned him into a prime target for Chancellor Exchequer and in sole charge of all money matters. But Sunak was an unashamed careerist, shamelessly aspirational and determined to topple his erstwhile boss Boris Johnson from his perch. 

And for what now seems an eternity, Sunak now finds himself lumbered with a job he may have wanted in the first place but then gave it much careful consideration. Now, with only days away from a General Election, the country is braced for the dirtiest and nastiest General Election in recent times. The Labour party, who have languished in the shadows for 14 years now, are gearing themselves up for a bruising battle royale that some of us may have to look away from. It could be very grisly and gruesome. 

Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour party, is a capable set of hands at the tiller, presentable, respectable, man of the people, a human rights lawyer and barrister who sounds as though he could be the answer to the most complicated problems. Starmer will be promising radical changes that will become a welcome breath of fresh air. Stamer means what he says and has yet to reveal a bone of betrayal in his body. But then, they all say that, do they not?

Starmer is committed to delightful tax cuts, a National Health Service that was healthier and fitter than ever before. Starmer just wants us all to be happy, financially robust beyond our wildest dreams and just go ahead and progressive, going in the right direction. He wants us all to get fit, hit the gyms, work out vigorously, receiving the best education before instantly heading for those halls of learning, the groves of academia. Then, he remains convinced that you'll get the most lucrative job which will pay you so many hundreds and thousands a month that you may have difficulty in knowing what to do with your vast sums of money.

Then you'll settle down with your family and friends, find a property in the country with fifteen bedrooms, a couple of conservatories, gleaming gold bathrooms with similarly coloured taps, kitchens the size of the Ritz hotel and dining rooms that are the height of luxury. The Labour party, of course, will always be synonymous with Socialist ideals, the appropriate distribution of wealth to one and all. Labour are genetically working class, rolling up their sleeves, always industrious and just getting on with the business of governing the country with an air of authenticity and sincerity about them. There are no airy fairy promises that can never be fulfilled. Oh, you won't be disappointed. Rest assured.

It could, of course, get very tasty if the rest of our lesser known political parties are given free rein to do whatever they like when elected as the next UK government. The Lib Dems, under the cheery Ed Davy have already made their intentions abundantly clear. Yes, the future Prime Minister will be standing up on paddle boards on Lake Windermere more or less over every weekend since the rest of the week as Prime Minister will be devoted to more serious matters as wrestling with the complexities of the British economy.

There's the Green Party and Reform UK, led by that happy go lucky Guinness drinker who loves nothing more than a good, old fashioned pint in your pub. Nigel Farage has already established his credentials by declaring his admiration for one Donald Trump who could be the President of the United States of America in November. Yes, you really couldn't make this one up. Farage was a thrustful stock market trader in the City of London who became a highly skilled businessman who made his money on the Stock Exchange. Farage is now an allegedly hilarious TV talking head, guaranteed to leave you gripped with laughter and, to some, just a troublemaker who just chose the salubrious air of seaside Clacton for his next end of pier act. 

So there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. You know what you have to do Thursday week. Pretend it's Easter or Christmas Day because you can't wait to vote in the next Prime Minister. Your year will be complete come the morning of July the 5th. Either Sir Keir Starmer and his family of the Labour party will become the full time residents of 10 Downing Street or Rishi Sunak, the Tory powerhouse figure who just wants Britain to become happy and wealthy. For just a couple of seconds you thought of Edward Heath and Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and then Margaret Thatcher who seemed to take out a mortgage on the place in the hope that she'd be there for ever.

But whatever you do, folks. Keep the faith in that somewhat controversial political process where no Prime Minister can ever do things right. So why do we bother? There's that honeymoon period for the days after July the 4th when Labour will be celebrated like a royal wedding and Sir Keir Starmer will be put forward for a Nobel Peace prize or some saintly figure who should be just adored by the masses. Great Britain, you have your pencil and piece of paper so exercise your right and tick in the right candidate who you want rather than the one our politicians think would drive the country to sun lit uplands. It could be a General Election classic or just forgettable. We'll see. Roll on Thursday week.