I spent election night with two University friends, a couple who live round the corner from me in the safe Labour seat of Hackney South. You would be hard pushed to find three more staunch, traditional, labour voters than us. I was interested to see, as we discussed it all in the pub prior to retiring to their house to watch the (truly excellent) TV coverage, over a (equally excellent) takeaway thali from Massala on Stoke Newington Church Street, the way our opinions collided and diverged. Last election she voted Socialist Alliance to send a message to Labour, but neither he nor I could bring ourselves to vote against them. This time he and I both had difficulty doing so, but voted Lib Dem because we couldn’t sanction that horrible sneering man having a third term. And she voted Labour because she wanted to see a return to the old Labour values which we all share.
My thinking process during the whole election ran something like that on sitting down at a restaurant where you have a favourite dish. You peruse the menu and decide that instead of the carbonara, you are going to go for a zucchini fettuccine. The bonuses of the new dish are clear, you have made your mind up, but when the waiter comes to take your order, you find yourself asking for the same old thing.
In the polling booth, I took two deep breaths, and put my cross next to Hugh Bayliss, Lib Dem, noting as I did so that he lives a couple of minutes away from me on a road on which I would very much like to buy a house. I surprised myself when my hand didn’t inadvertently wander to the Labour box, and I felt enormously pleased with myself for voting for the party which I feel most closely represents my beliefs and convictions.
Back to the pub. Where he is saying to her ‘I can’t believe you voted for that awful man’, and she is beginning to doubt what she has done. But as the evening wears on and we see the first seats won by Labour, but with a swing to the Tories, both he and I begin to wonder what we have done… Was Tony’s warning not to split the left vote bizarrely prescient, rather than a mere trickery to guilt left wing voters into voting for a party that has betrayed them? I leave after four seats are declared, with her shouts of ‘What have you two done? It’s all going to be your fault’ ringing in my guilty guilty ears.
I get into bed, still glued to the telly, and fall asleep to the news that Mr George ‘Human Rights for Iraqi despots’ Galloway has almost certainly won Bethnal Green and Bow.
Wake up this morning and lie in bed for fifteen minutes before summoning up the courage to even think about it. Wander into the kitchen, where Bloke and Blonde are having a cup of coffee. I ask for news, and she says ‘I am too nervous to check’. Back into bedroom, telly on, and its clear that Labour have won a majority pretty much on a par with both the expectations of the pundits, and the exit polls, but that the Liberal Democrats haven’t gained as much as was expected, or as I had hoped. Huge sigh of relief as I look on Ceefax for Hackney figures, to see that Labour dropped about 2500 votes from last time, almost all of which were accounted for by Lib Dem gains, and little change in the Conservative figures. Also pleased to see Green coming in fourth.
My stomach does a churning lurch that can’t just be down to the excess of Leffe drunk last night, as Tony Blair talks of having been given a mandate from the people for a third term in office. Almost pleased to see that idiot Ferry staging his feeble protest. If one more person says ‘secures an historic third term’ or mentions the fact that it is the smug bastard’s birthday today, I may not be able to control the churning any longer. Bring on the taciturn Scot, I think to myself.
Grumpy (Bethnal Green and Bow) texts me to say ‘By George. Have RESPECT. Bye bye Oona.’ I start to plan my strategy of derision and mockery for having such a rubbish MP. He voted for the Green party candidate because he fancies him.