General Election time in Britain- let the fun begin.

General Election time in Britain- let the fun begin.

Guess what everybody? It's General Election time in Britain. Now who saw that coming? Certainly not me but yes folks it's time for Britain to go to the polls on June 8th. This morning Theresa May, the Prime Minister, announced the date for a snap General Election outside 10 Downing Street. It has to be said she looked very smug and privately thrilled. You can hardly blame her. Now here's a woman who knows exactly when to time her political pronouncements to the precise second without a shred of doubt in her voice.

Now of course miracles do crop up every so often and stranger things have been known to happen but can you really see the most monumental upset in General Election history since- well, since the beginning of time? If the Conservative party lose then some of us may be tempted to stand on our heads with a tray of water on the said head. This is like the fulfilment of a dream for the Tories, the best thing that could possibly have happened at any time because Jeremy Corbyn, the rather sheepish but defiant leader of the Labour Party, is looking at a severe hammering when the nation goes to the polls in June.

There have been Labour leaders, even Labour Prime Ministers but there has never been anybody quite as bad and quite possibly weak, as Corbyn. From the moment he was elected as the new leader of the Labour Party, the Tories launched into one long period of celebration and exultation the like of which Britain had rarely seen. The reasons became obvious and poor Jeremy is beginning to look like that wonderful Olympic swimmer who couldn't really swim but took part anyway and was delighted to finish last.

The one notable difference though between that Olympic swimmer and Corbyn is that the Labour leader will be outraged and incensed if he doesn't win the imminent General Election. Already the noises from the Corbyn camp are positive. Here, after all is a man who genuinely believes that come June 8th the whole of Britain will back him to the hilt and if you follow him then he'll be the most outstanding Prime Minister since Gladstone or Disraeli or even the Earl of Liverpool.

If all goes according to plan then the Labour party will suffer the bloodiest political nose in any lifetime. Corbyn will be soundly thrashed, humiliated, outclassed, thrown to the lions, completely overwhelmed and if he isn't then it may go down as one of the greatest  General Election shocks of all time. Sadly, or not, as be it the case, our Jeremy will have to hide behind the sofa or pretend that the whole occasion was just a sham, a charade or maybe it didn't happen at all.

Maybe, in all probability, the country will chuck the proverbial tomatoes at him or demand his head at the guillotine or tell him something he may know already. The truth is that Corbyn is so far behind in the polls and so unpopular that he may be advised to stay at home and watch events unfold in a dark cupboard.

Of course he is a well intentioned and honourable politician but regrettably Corbyn doesn't have the right credentials to be Great Britain's next Prime Minister. Some believe he is arrogant, out of touch with the mood of the nation and simply incapable of forming a constructive policy. Jeremy Corbyn has lost favour with the people of the United Kingdom because Corbyn has trodden on too many toes and, if truth be told, made  statements that were utterly tactless. His enemies may well prove the ruination of the man.

But come June 8th and Britain will come home from work, stroll along to our church hall or the community centre where they live and wander over to our polling officers. Here we will be issued with those familiar ballot slips and then the final decision will be made. In the privacy of our booth we'll be requested to make up our minds about the outcome of the next General Election. Some of us will giggle briefly and then trust implicitly in our judgments. It will surely be the most one sided General Election of all time and poor Corbyn must be dreading the day.

There is though something wonderfully English about the whole of a General Election day. When you're at school and not old enough to vote you don't really care one way or the other. Come 10.00 in the evening you'd switch on your TV and probably stay up until the results started trickling through. Then you'd yawn and stretch indifferently, go to bed and by the following morning you'd wake up to a new Prime Minister. In a sense you were inclined to think that nothing that special had just taken place. And you may have been right to think along those lines because that was the way it probably felt.

In the old days we had the BBC team of Robin Day, market researchers, straw polls which incidentally were not made of straw, exit polls which nobody dared leave and then Peter Snow. Ah Peter Snow. Now here was the face and voice of General Election night, a man of dignity and reliability, a man who never seem to get tired or wished he were somewhere else. Snow was the embodiment of English eccentricity, a man who loved statistics, percentages, margins and of course that beloved SwingOmeter.

Now Peter Snow was the BBC's SwingOmeter man on the spot, a man who became obsessed with swinging that arrow on that simple piece of cardboard. Snow was never happier than that moment when either the Labour or Conservative party had either lost or won seats in their constituency. He reminded you of the kid who once he got hold of that toy fire engine would never leave it alone. It was not so much as a job more of a way of life for Snow on that magical of nights.

Every so often Snow would get carried away by the SwingOmeter, that crazy device that now seems, on reflection, very primitive but was then regarded with the highest esteem. But Snow was a happy bunny and nobody was about to spoil his fun. Now of course computers have paved the way for clever graphics that go gee whiz rather than a dull, anti climactic thud.

Throughout the history of British general elections there have been very few Prime Ministers who actually looked as though they were out of the running and just running on empty. Even Margaret Thatcher somehow knew she'd win on the day in May 1979 because Britain deserved to have a woman running the country rather than those grey suited men who didn't really know what they were doing in the first place.

But this election will be the most comprehensive victory for the Tories of all time.  This one is in the bag and there is a sense in the country that Corbyn should perhaps wave the white flag now rather than June 8th. Even poor Neil Kinnock admitted defeat in the very early stages of the 1983 and 1987 General Elections when Thatcher was on the warpath. For Corbyn then read Neil Kinnock although for Jeremy Corbyn there were no pratfalls on the beach with his wife nor an election rally that almost smacked of awkward amateurism.

So there you have it. Britain is going to the polls and it's time to tell that misguided Lib Dems new leader Tim Farron and any other minor party with no influence that there will be only one winner. I've always felt sorry for the Lib Dems or Liberals as they used to be known in another incarnation. One of these days the Lib Dems will simply decide that it just isn't their worthwhile and a vote for the Lib Dems is effectively a wasted one. Mind you Paddy Ashdown was always gracious in defeat and only accepted defeat until it was mathematically impossible which invariably coincided with the start of the General Election.

What about the Green Party, the Tax Payers Alliance perhaps or the Monster Ravin Loony Party that deeply respected political force who seem to regard every General Election as the perfect opportunity to wear fancy dress costumes. Then there's the Who Cares Wins party, or the I'd rather Play Scrabble party or the Let's Go for a swim in the Serpentine on Christmas Day party or maybe the Bring Back the Test Card party where that little girl finally beats that puppet at noughts and crosses. I know. Let's just go to Europe for the day. Sorry that's a contentious issue at the moment so that's not for consideration.

Yes folks the snap General Election on June 8th is coming to a village hall or school near you. Yet again it's on a Thursday as opposed to any other day of  the week. Now my dad had the day off from work on Thursday so it did seem good timing on the Prime Minister's part. My dad was never politically minded but he did retain his working class ethos and would always vote for Labour.

But come the day come the Tory party with all their blue rosettes, blue flags and blue finery. In a quiet moment the Labour party may be tempted to think back to that momentous day in 1997 when Tony Blair, a fresh faced member of the Labour Party rode his chariot into 10 Downing Street when all seemed lost for Labour. Now it seems all over for the Labour party with the General Election literally around the corner. What, it seems only fair to ask, are they going to do on the day or maybe it would be much simpler to concede defeat and just put it down to experience.

What does an embattled and defeated man do when very few people like you, even fewer can be bothered to engage him in any kind of discussion and only the more frivolous members of his party give him any kind of chance at all. It is all over bar the the shouting or even the silence for Labour. Sometimes even the most hopeless cause can seem even more hopeless. This may not be the news you'd like to hear from your country Jeremy. But if I were you I'd leave the country for the day. This whole business of politics may not be for you Jeremy Corbyn. Mind you Mr Corbyn I'd hang around for just a while. To quote your former leader. Things can only get better. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.