Here we are then. Election week! Gosh, it doesn’t seem like six weeks ago the Prime Minister was getting soaked in Downing Street while someone sarcastically played ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ at the end of the road. It’s gone fast.
I suppose constitutionally they have to have six weeks of campaigning, right? It’s just that not much has happened to shift the outcome. I mean not really. By and large, the result is pretty much what everyone thinks it will be, despite the game they’re all playing in case it isn’t. With the exception of Reform splitting the Conservative vote and potentially taking 6-8 seats, the polls are static, and we’ll have a new stuffy Prime Minister by the end of the week. I reckon they could have got the polling stations and returning officers together quickly and the whole thing would have been over and done by now.
Anyway, the month and a half they have had has been fun. Sort of. We had canvassers of all colours on the door, and a small pile of coloured paper through the letterbox. There were debates to see who was best at interrupting, radio shows and TV interviews where the candidates floundered on sofas, and of course, some scandalous moments, poked and exploded by social media, by journalists, and by almost everyone else with wide eyes and quick fingers.
After all that, Sammy and I still took time to plough through the manifestos. Our reflection is that we’re told left, right and centre who not to vote for, and what terrible things await us if we do. The manifestos ought to be a single voice of why we pick whom we pick, based on the issues that really matter to us. And so we scrolled.
Because you can’t please all the people all the time, and because these political parties know it, the manifestos end up as a wishy washy collection of vague-sounding promises. All of them. I found myself once again asking ‘how’ and ‘from where?’ and ‘who pays for that?’ over and over again. Oh and let’s not forget the old ‘Why haven’t you already done that for the last 14 years then?’ question.
What’s more, as Christians (and I guess it might be similar for all people of faith) you have a very strong moral worldview. There are some inflexibles you know you can’t agree with. But you also know that that very framework of belief tells you that it’s important to vote, to be part of the democratic process, to stand up with the voice you’ve been given, even if it makes just a scintilla of difference. It’s very difficult to pick for whom, without feeling you’ve somehow compromised the gospel.
You’ve got to find the closest fit.
Also, and I do mean this - it’s hard enough without people criticising each other for their choices. I wish we could all just stop that incessant sniping. Just stop it.
‘Things can only get wetter,’ was the in-joke that day. One drenched Prime Minister symbolising a very British kind of misery, like a boy who knows he’s off on summer hols abroad soon if he can just push through this final end of term project. New head boy next year, innit.
We will go and vote. I think both of us have found the options that we believe in the most. I’m never going to publicise for whom though. And then I hope to stay up for a bit and watch the results come rolling in. At that point, this little six week melee of election fever might be finally over, and we can all breathe-a-sigh-of-relief/steel-ourselves/party/commiserate/lament/cheer/not-do-anything…on social media. Huzzah, Britain.
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