Local political elections

 Local political elections.

Sir Keir Starmer, that master of understatement, kept insisting that it had been a tough couple of days and by yesterday morning, the UK Prime Minister was so shell shocked and distraught that he must have been dreaming and destined to have nightmares for months and even as far ahead as the next British General Election. There can be few who would willingly swap places with Starmer because, quite frankly, who would need all of that hassle and aggravation, the constant remorse, self questioning,  those moments of regret and introspection that no politician can seem to handle. 

Starmer's Labour government had suffered the bloodiest nose in political history, a good, old fashioned kicking where it hurts most and the sense of awkward malaise had rendered him dumbstruck. Over a year and a half ago now, the Labour party had sailed serenely to a gigantic landslide victory over the Conservative Party in the General Election. Sir Keir Starmer was carried high on all of his party members shoulders as if the 1966 World Cup had been won again and none could possibly emulate or surpass. Labour had won the General Election but the glorious air of euphoria soon wore off almost immediately. 

On Thursday, the battle scars of war and conflict on the front were once again starkly revealed, the Labour party once again a wounded animal after so many troubles and difficulties in recent times. Is the whole concept of being elected as the winning party in the General Election, quite literally, the poisoned chalice of any mythology because none of the mainstream parties can ever get it right? Perhaps they should toss a coin or just draw lots. It all seems like some ridiculous Lottery and you wonder why the voters bother. 

We were on local election territory in both London and all the shires, suburbs, cities, towns, villages and communities of every part of Britain. It is now commonly assumed that this needn't be regarded as the end of the world for the Labour party but surely it must be rankling with them that defeat was so humiliating. And here we were thinking that the Conservatives were a basket case for 14 years but once again the public came out in a collective sweat of fury and righteous indignation. They were fuming and just bitterly angry, roaringly resentful of all those stupid politicians who keep burning our ears with their blathering rhetoric.

But suddenly we were informed that there had been a monumentally dramatic shift in the fortunes of both the Labour and Tory party. Both had been brutally beaten up by the playground bully boys, pummelled into the ground, left with their satchels on the ground and their bags snapped in half. There were two new kids on the block and they were just incensed with the prevailing mood of the country. Given half a chance, they'd have probably plundered everything including pens, pencils and notebooks. 

So by Friday morning both the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats were sprawled out on the ground, bleeding profusely if metaphorically, struggling to make sense of what had just happened to them and just staggering to their feet like heavyweight boxers, groggy and severely dazed, rattled and perturbed. How on earth were they smashed out of the park like that? Who'd been plotting behind their backs, secretly conspiring to beat them black and blue, whispering nasty and insulting gossip and then behaving with all of the unsavoury aggression of people who should really know better. 

And yet this has always been the way because we persist with the theory that one political party alone can wave a magic wand and transform the economic landscape overnight. But there was much more than met the eye after Thursday's horror show. There was the Green party, the Reform UK, two intimidating political upstarts, snotty nosed rebels and renegades who were just desperate for a spot of gang warfare. Did they think they were hard enough? They were scrapping for a fight and didn't care a tuppence for the repercussions of their actions. 

So there was Nigel Farage, who sounds like a cross between Dennis Skinner and a slightly more downmarket Arthur Scargill. He was loud and forceful, outrageous and obnoxious in the eyes of some but perhaps others. Some of us couldn't possibly mention. Farage is the bloke in the pub, the pint of Guinness man who lights up his Benson and Hedges cigarettes and then blisters your ears with statements of the obvious and intolerable. 

Now the chances are that although Reform UK almost completely crushed the opposition with a huge display of boastful bravado and braggadocio, you were almost tempted to believe that he may well have been telling the truth. Farage modestly played down his contribution to the rise and rise of the Reform UK party but made no secret of his grandiose ambitions. You suspect he'd love the keys to 10 Downing Street and wipe the floor with the Tories and the Labour party.

Yesterday he declared that the emergence of the Reform UK party was like a breath of fresh air, confidently announcing that shortly Sir Keir Starmer will have to admit defeat and walk the walk of shame. Farage will repeatedly tell us that Starmer will be gone by the middle of summer and the Reform UK party are a party of honesty, straight talking, honour and principle. They'll immediately send back those irritating immigrants who keep landing on our beaches and expecting a land of golden prosperity. Britain will be for British people, the yeomen workers who just want to bring up their families in comfort and security or so they keep telling us.  

For several minutes Farage sounded as though he really meant business and that a noticeable sea change was about to sweep away the flotsam and jetsam of British politics. He grins like the proverbial Cheshire cat, smiles sycophantically and then reassures us that the Tories and Labour are now history. He does so because he'd just like to shake up the status quo, upset the Establishment and just compel us to listen to him whether we liked it or not. 

The Reform Party, for the record, won 1,448 seats in the local council elections and Farage had every right to be smug. The Tories and Labour parties had been trodden into the ground, pulverised, obliterated, made mincemeat of and then taken to the cleaners to quote a few cliches. And then there was the Green party headed by the sneering, smirking, sanctimonious Zak Polansky who is just looking out for the welfare of Britain and has their best interests at heart. But surely this is not right. Polansky is barely out of his nappies in that combustible world of politics but he knows best. 

According to some Polansky, the world would be immeasurably better if you heeded all of his warnings and just followed him around like the great leader he so obviously is. But then you were told that Polansky is a rabid antisemite, a blatant racist, neither here nor there, a right pain in the neck in the eyes of some but, essentially, ineffectual as a chocolate tea pot. But the Greens are the future of this country, this sceptred isle, environmentally friendly, good eggs, a proud patriots and ready to rough up everybody with revolutionary zeal. 

The Greens stacked up a huge amount of the votes and recorded their best local election victory in ages, shunting both the Tories and Labour into no man's land. They were dancing down the suburban streets and roads of Britain and almost besides themselves with unconfined joy and jubilation. The Labour party did win 1,007 seats in the local council heartlands but the outcome does make make for unnerving reading and watching.

Across the green pastures of Britain, town halls were bristling with ballot boxes and politicians massaging their egos. They were traipsing around the floor, wandering aimlessly around for most of the night and then fretting, fidgeting, sighing, scowling and then looking at their watches for the 50th time. It was a scene played right out across Britain and for a while, it was like watching some entertaining circus act and even the high wire trapeze artists looked hugely impressive. 

But today Sir Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister is out there in the public domain, exposed as a fraud in some parts of the country and just a risible joke in Scotland and Wales. Plaid Cymru and the Scottish contingent had left Labour out cold, bewildered and licking their bruises. The Greens and Reform UK party were still convinced that they'd won the night hands down and somebody should take them to 10 Downing Street pronto. And so it was that the local elections had left its political imprint on the state of the nation and we were still speechless, totally indifferent and apathetic. Surely this has always been the case when matters turn to Westminster and the House of Commons.