What the hell happened?
I woke up Friday morning hoping the exit polls were just speculation. In fact I was up at 5-30 remembering that was the time they announce the results for Wirral. That turned out to be the only real light (along with Farage) in this black night descending. The first voice I hear is the capitulating tones of Ed Miliband as Labour's rescue boat crashed onto the rocks with a great many casualties.
We are now looking at a Tory majority in the house of about 330 give or take. I suppose that isn't huge, but they have around 90 seats over Labour. As far as I can tell any vote where we need the opposition to win (in other words all of them) we are likely to lose - that is after all the point of having a majority.
This is shit. I have never been so scared in my life. I have spent the last two days in a daze, bereft. It's been a funeral for the soul where the only comfort is that I'm not alone. Yet now we are all more alone than ever before given what is likely at stake that I cannot even bring myself to mention. It's too much to consider what we stand to lose - and with very little political opposition as Labour are now looking to move even further into the Tory shadow. This will be confirmed if their choice for the next leader is someone like pro-capitalist Chuka Umuna.
It is clear that a combination of five years of toxic propaganda, lies and media manipulation has brought us to this point. The average Tory will not admit they voted for a party that supports the persecution of the poorest and the weakest - despite that being exactly what happened from 2010 (and I'm sure will again as Duncan Smith is hardly likely to shift post). They instead will point to how Cameron has led a recovery out of Labour-created doldrums and economic depravity. However there is and has never been any evidence that Labour were profligate, or that they spent all the money - despite Cameron desperately waving that note around. In fact that image says it all: a child waving around a lollipop stick with a funny joke, because that's all that note was. And anyone could have written it, but isntead the faithful saw the image of a piece of paper with some scrawl on it and a Parliamentary header and thought "yes, that's clear proof of Labour's financial incompetence", despite all evidence to the contrary. (hint: Paul Krugman wins nobel prizes for his knowledge of economics, David Cameron, to date, hasn't).
Unfortunately Labour comprehensively failed to get that fact across. Like startled rabbits, caught in the headlights, they found themselves suddenly unsure of where to go and what to say. For five years they floundered under a man who, to all intents and purposes may well have been a reasonable sort, but couldn't and wouldn't defend himself. A man without the charisma and presence and message necessary to counter the Tory onslaught which was backed up by enormous amounts of money (profligate, you might say) and enormous amounts of media...
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