The 2019 General Election: Live!

9:25pm

Wow! I remembered my blogspot password.

Hello folks, it's been awhile. 

To quote Brenda from Bristol (aka: our modern day Nostradamus) "You're joking! Not another one..."

A quick disclaimer: I have to be up at 6:00am tomorrow morning for work. I also have a politics essay to write.

Now... I *promised* myself I wouldn't stay up to blog the election but I just CANNOT. SIT. STILL. 

It's half an hour till the exit polls are announced. This has big ramifications for the panic attack I'm currently experiencing: it could have a shelf life of 30 minutes or 5 years depending on what is announced at 10 o'clock.

There were no exit polls for the EU referendum back in 2016 and I remember merrily going to bed until I woke up in a cold sweat to the sound of Nick Robinson's sombre tones on the Today programme announcing 51% of the country had voted to leave.  

Will I make it in to work tomorrow? (Yes and I'm really looking forward to it if my boss just so happens to be reading this...) We'll see. Can you imagine the sheer irony of failing a politics degree because you stayed up to watch the General Election? A paradox that seems to exemplify the current political situation we find ourselves in.

Fasten yer seatbelts.

9:40pm

I need to change this. I'm a fully grown adult woman of 22 now. Still addicted to tea and not a fan of early mornings, but hopefully with a little more life experience now. Bless.

9:53pm

Here's my cat channelling her inner spirit of '45 to calm any last minute jitters:

Ken Loach's film about the 1945 General Election

My cat, Prudence

10:05pm

Kyrie Eleison. Christie Eleison. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.
Jesus WEPT.

An 80 seat majority.
Wow.

10:14pm
He HID. IN. A. FRIDGE.  Our Prime Minister HID. IN. A. FRIDGE.

Homelessness has more than doubled over the last 10 years of Tory government. People are dying. Schools can't afford toilet rolls. The NHS is on it's knees and yet we've got the worst Labour result since 1939. Wow.

10:41pm
A bloke from Ipsos Mori has just popped up on the BBC saying that even B O L S O V E R could go blue. It's always been a bit marginal but surely to God Dennis Skinner can't loose his seat? What will he do?! There are only so many times he can use his bus pass to have a look around the National Coal Mining Museum.
Ipsos Mori? You mean Memento Mori?

10:56pm
Er... right. Let's think of the positives. However much you disappoint other people in your life, at least you can't reach the levels of David Cameron and his Mum. Imagine the entire country knowing that you put your genitals in a dead pig's mouth and that not even being *close* to the worst thing he'll be remembered for. All of this stems from his inability to reconcile the two wings of his party. He was arrogant enough to gamble the entire future of our nation to stop bickering in the Tory party. The current political nightmare we find ourselves in (when I say nightmare I mean one of those really terrifying sleep paralysis ones where you're awake but have no control whatsoever over your own body... or future... or destiny...) has deep roots but David Cameron announcing the 2016 EU referendum was our Eve in Eden moment.

Cider with Cameron: everyone's least favourite Laurie Lee novel

11:06pm
More positives. If Wakefield turns Tory I'm sure the Cribs' won't run out of punk for their next album.








11:27pm
Newcastle Central: the first constituency to declare with a 58% Labour majority. Well done Chi Onwurah. The entirety of the UK Parliament is currently a black woman standing on a socialist manifesto. Savour this moment.

11:34pm
Ian Levy. Blyth Valley in Northumberland. Working class, ex-mining town. Wow. A candidate in a strong North Eastern accent who WORKS FOR THE NHS is on the telly thanking Boris Johnson. My jaw is on the floor. If this continues most of January will be filled with extensive orthodontic surgery.

11:49pm
Never mind when I was 7 years old and started to realise Santa Claus had the same handwriting as my Grandma. All I asked Santa for was a labour majority government this year. Told him he didn't even need to bother wrapping it. But socks it is. Bah Humbug.

It's early but I am going to bed. Whatever happens I have to get up at 7:00am for my minimum wage job tomorrow and put a Christmas jumper on and pretend to smile. I am tired in my bones. Good night.

Merry fucking Christmas to you.

CORBYN MUST GO.

I remember the rally on Friday 7th August 2015 well.

'Absolutley Bloody Brilliant'- my initial take on Corbyn 

Scorching hot- and with what seemed like all of Bradford packed into the Karmand Community center.  Hundreds of fists in the air chanting 'JEZ WE CAN'.  I could scarcely believe that there was actually a real life candidate for the Labour Leadership willing to use the 'S' word about himself. I remember scores of people telling me that there was no future in Corbyn's 'Politics of Hope': that he could never win.  I remember being overwhelmed with joy when he did, in fact, win with a staggering 59.5%: resting a celebratory pint of stout on my free Jez beer mat. So yes, you could say I was part of that initial wave of Corbynmania; defecting from the Greens to stump up my £3 to vote for him.

There were the early naysayers, those like Blair, saying "If your heart is with Corbyn you need a transplant". He was easy to dismiss... "Wait till Chilcott you bastard!"  And obviously, the right wing press were never going to back a socialist. He didn't bow low enough. He didn't sing the national anthem. His suits were more 'panama canal' than the corridors of power.
It was to be expected.

Corbyn in his beloved beige suit

Rupert Murdoch was hardly going to become a raging bearded Marxist overnight.
The PLP were also dismayed by Corbyn's victory: many of them embittered old Blairites, fiercely protecting the legacy of 'The Third Way'. They've been plotting a coup ever since he gained office, muttering about antisemitism and handshakes with Hamas.

But then what? Where did all that Momentum go? What has Corbyn actually done, other than publicly  turn up late to several interviews?
Oh wait.... There was a press release some time in August proposing 'women only train carriages'...
(See The Thick of It, Series 2)

Corbyn's success in the first place was accidental. He stood as a paper candidate, intending to attack the other candidates from the left and put his policies on the agenda. When he got on the ballot paper, he allegedly told an ally "Now make sure I don't win".

A Milne Mistake: The shambolic SkyNews conference
last night 

Another mistake was  appointing ex-Guardian journalist Seumas Milne as Press Secretary: a man with no prior experience, known only to most Labour MPs as 'Shameless Bilge'. Recent leaked emails have transpired that Milne was behind the 'watering down' of several of Corbyn's speeches on Europe, urging him to restrain the campaign for Remain. Alan Johnson also reported that Corbyn's office did not even bother to turn up to weekly EU briefings.

This could have been Corbyn's time to shine. All that anti-establishment anger on council estates up and down the country could have been harnessed in Labour's favour. Where were the rallying speeches, telling working class voters that austerity, not immigration is to blame for Britain's current predicament? The photo opportunities in call centers and warehouses up and down the country? Instead we got confusion, with only 55% of voters being able to identify that Labour's official position was Remain.

Corbyn's opposition to the EU is rooted in the politics of the 1980s. Admittedly, the EU does have flaws; it's support of TTIP and imposition of austerity on Greece being the two most glaringly obvious ones. But on the whole, it's not a 'Capitalist Ramp'.  The Social Chapter, The 2003 Working Time Directive and the billions of Euros invested in deprived ex-mining towns across the UK through the regional cohesion funds represent a progressive kind of politics, helping the working classes of Europe. Now that we've voted to leave, it's the British working classes who will suffer the result of economic uncertainty.

The final nail in the coffin for me was his statement last Friday morning in the immediate aftermath of the vote. He said "Article 50 must be invoked now". The county is in a state of turmoil, and what we need is breathing space before official negotiations begin. Hearing Corbyn call for the starting pistol to be fired left me screaming "What planet are you on?!" at my radio.

......Clearly one with no signal if Angela Eagle's claims that "he never answers his phone and is impossible to contact" are to be believed.

Angela Eagle resigns, along with more than half of the shadow cabinet,
citing Corbyn's communication issues as a crucial factor 

The shambolic press conference with Sky News earlier today further demonstrates his inability to confront the press on the most basic of levels.

Anybody else who attended the Bradford rally on Friday 7th August 2015 will also remember it for it's soundtrack. Somebody had hastily hooked an iPod up to a PA system and left it on repeat. Survivor's 'Eye of The Tiger' was looped over, and over and over again for at least an hour. At first, it had the desired effect: striking a triumphal note and pumping up the supporters. It quickly began to grate. After a while, there was booing every time the iPod jerkily paused and restarted the song. It started to feel strangely surreal.
Eventually, it proved that you can't keep repeating the same tired old message over and over again. It's no good being elected leader of the opposition and continuing largely as normal; holding a constituency surgery every Friday then cycling off to the local CND meeting for vegan tea and cake.
Something has to change.
The PLP has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Motion of No Confidence at 172-40, and the risk of the party imploding completely is very very real. We cannot let the #EdStone read '1900-2016'. With the worrying rise of the Far Right and the possibility of more recession driven austerity, we need a Leader who can actually lead.

Jeremy, you're a wonderful human being and I wish you all the best at the next 'NHS SOS' bake sale, but you've got to go. Stand aside and let someone who will actually challenge the Tories and FIGHT for our NHS using their full force as leader of the opposition take your place.