Cyberkitten & the December Election

Well, I got THAT wrong! I don’t think I have much of a future as a political forecaster….. I did do some research though. I talked to my gaming buddies who had varying opinions on the subject covering most of the options available – including not voting at all. I also talked to quite a few people at work both inside and outside my team. The consensus was pretty much the same whoever I talked to – that they were largely undecided and that all of the parties had problems and that any voting decision was going to be a tough one. When the prediction first came out that the Tories were going to win with an 80+ majority I didn’t believe it. After all they were expecting a majority last time and actually LOST seats. But then reality intruded….

As usual I’d book the day after off (so brought the start of my Christmas Leave one day forward to Friday 13th December) and planned to stay up all night watching the results as they came in. In the event I stayed up till around 3am and had lost interest by that point. By then it was obvious that the Conservatives were going to win and win big so I went to bed. Checking next morning I was actually shocked by the result. True the Tories didn’t do quite as well as predicted but they still managed to get a majority of 39 after gaining 47 seats so they should be able to do pretty much what they like despite any backbench rebellion. It also means that they should be able to push through their Brexit programme pretty much unopposed. Labour got destroyed – much more than I expected and apparently chalked up their biggest election defeat since 1935! Not surprisingly several of the leadership including Jeremy himself will be falling on their swords and bowing out of things. This will, inevitably, be followed by much in-fighting and bloodletting which will make the Labour Party unelectable for at least 5-10 years. We’ll probably end up with something akin to the Blair version of New Labour eventually. Even more surprising, at least to me, is the shift that didn’t happen as the Liberal Democrats picked up fewer votes than I expected and actually reduced their number by 1 – embarrassingly the seat of their leader who, in accordance with their rules, has had to stand down from her leadership position. About the only thing I got right, which to be honest was bloody obvious, was how well the Scottish Nationalists did – gaining 13 seats and almost taking the whole of Scotland (again). All of the pundits think this will mean an inevitable clash between the Scots and the British parliament and a possible constitutional crisis if Scotland insists on a second Independence Referendum and the British government deny them one.

So, not exactly the opposite of what I expected to happen but close enough. It does mean yet another 5 years of Tory government with a chaotic opposition and, probably, another 5 years after that too. Brexit will be agreed early next year but I doubt that we’ll be fully out by the Christmas 2020 deadline. I think it’ll drag on a year or two after that….. But we are eventually leaving. I’ll never see it as a good idea (or even a sane one) but I do need to accept that it is really going to happen. Interesting Times will continue for some time yet – you’d better buckle up!