In 1979, I was able to vote in a general election for the first time. It was with neither hope nor expectation. After five long years, Labour had run out of steam, inflation was rampant and a new, hard right Conservative party led by Margaret Thatcher (*spits*) waltzed into Downing Street. Thatcher changed everything. More than anyone else, before or since, she divided the country. I am, and always will be, in the camp that loathed her. I am not going to pretend I didn’t have a glass of something cold and sparkling when she died. Those were dark days.
I did not get the chance to vote for a winning party until 1997 when Tony Blair’s New Labour won a landslide victory. 21 years ago today. Four years later, he won another landslide and four years later again he won with a big majority. Things, they said, could only get better and they did get better. Living standards rose, the NHS was saved and then transformed, schools were dramatically improved, the national minimum wage was introduced, equal marriage, Sure Start – almost everything got better.
I even left Labour in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq, but I still supported Blair’s New Labour. Iraq was more a disaster of timing than whether we should have done anything at all. A genocidal maniac like Saddam would have to be dealt with sooner or later. Anyway, put Iraq to one side. Britain got better in every way. Whataboutery in terms of PFI and student tuition fees can get in the way but the truth is that Blair was a great prime minister.
I do not expect to see another Labour government in my lifetime. The worthless and out of his depth Jeremy Corbyn has no leadership qualities at all. He “leads”, in the most general sense of the word, a protest movement. It’s all he knows. No one, but no one, in their right minds could seriously envisage a government under Corbyn, featuring the lack of talent on his front bench like McDonnell, Abbott, Burgon, Thornberry and loads of other people we have never heard of. All of Labour’s real talent, with the possible exception of Keir Starmer, is on the backbenches and with the Absolute Boy nominally in charge this will never change.
So, I face a lifetime in which I only ever voted for the winning side on three occasions and the winner on each occasion was Tony Blair. Now we live in times of mediocrity where the second worst come first and the worst come second. Theresa May v Jeremy Corbyn: you could not make it up. From a Tory point of view, it’s easy. As soon as they can ditch May, they will. But for Labour, when Seumas Milne decides it’s time for the Absolute Boy to slip away to the backbenches where his lack of talent doesn’t show so much, it will be another useless sixty-something comrade, another veteran of the disastrous Tony Benn era who takes over. Then, Labour can protest all it likes, but it won’t influence or change a damn thing.
