The righteous vengeance of election defeat
UK general election 2024 results: Labour's loss, Tory comeuppance, cycling history made.
As you read this email, you’ll know the official results of the UK general election 2024. I’m typing this on the day of voting, but let’s be clear: we already know who the winner is going to be. Or, perhaps: we know who the loser is going to be.
I don’t mean that there’s any doubt that Keir “My Dad Was a Toolmaker” Starmer is going to walk into Number Ten tomorrow. My point is that it’s unclear who “wins” from this result, because it certainly isn’t the British public.
Living in the UK these past few years has felt almost hedonistic as the gradual erosion and decay of our public services has accelerated. I remember being at Glastonbury back in 2014 when heavy rain briefly shut down the Pyramid stage. Nobody was dressed properly for the storm and after a while we all stopped trying to shelter from it. One bloke took off most of his clothes and began dancing in a muddy corner and soon there were crowds of people joining him, everyone covered in mud and rain and seemingly beginning the descent into oblivion.
This is a little how the country has felt since the last general election, except replace the mud with literal shit, and replace the carefree celebrating with selfish greed.
When things get bad and look certain to stay that way, everything breaks down. It’s a free-for-all; lawless. Everybody’s expectations drop to zero and we no longer hold any faith or trust in institutions. Cynicism rules and we wallow in the depressing state of civic life.
Love Labour’s loss
I’m not about to perform a verbal mic drop and tell you I think Sir Keir’n’chums are about to reverse the nation’s decline in their first ninety days (or indeed five years) in power, or that we should be “hopeful” for the future of the country under Labour.
This is why it’s clear to me who the losers are: it’s us. We lose because we’re lumbered with a political system where many votes are meaningless. We lose because politicians don’t come from anything resembling the real world any more. We lose because every half-decade or so, our choices are to lurch one way or another, hoping against hope that the incoming band of sociopaths will remember their duty to their constituents for long enough to effect change.
I want things to improve and I do cling to the faintest sliver of—yes—hope that Labour may manage to counteract the end-of-the-party vibes the country is currently feeling: the end of the party where the house is trashed, the smarter people are sneaking out of the back door, and everyone else is throwing up in each others’ hair and sizing up which of the electronics can be safely nicked before the homeowners wake up from their k-hole.
It’s also the end—hopefully—of another party: the Conservatives. This is the real thing keeping me hopeful and excited today – pure schadenfreude. Though we define this as “pleasure derived by someone’s misfortune" – none of this is misfortune by the Tory party. No, this is good, old-fashioned comeuppance.
I’m not normally one for vengeance and bitterness, but this time? I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow and see them ground into the dirt. I want to see tears as former ministers lose their seats. I want to see record, unexpected swings and crushing, embarrassing defeats. I want them to understand with painful, late-onset realisation: the country hates what they’ve done to us, and wants them to know it. This angry, frightening rage is the only part of this election I’m enjoying.
And I don’t like it. I don’t want to feel hatred, anger, frustration. I want to participate in a political system where a major party—with opposing views to mine—still operates with decency and a sense of service. I want to be challenged, even, on my own beliefs. Maybe the Tories still have a scintilla of this in their much-debated “soul”. But after the last fourteen years? They are going to be reduced to ashes. And they deserve to be.
Mini-feels this week
In lighter news…
I’m a long-time follower of professional cycling, and as you’ll no doubt be aware, the Tour de France started last week. So far it’s been a vintage edition and we’re only five stages in: a retiring Frenchman wore the yellow jersey after the first stage for the first time in his career. A rider from Eritrea won a stage and became the first black African to take a Tour victory. But yesterday, sporting history was made.
Mark Cavendish, a British sprinter, won his 35th Tour stage. He won his first eighteen years ago when some of the current peloton weren’t even old enough to ride with pedals. He was written off many times, as recently as last weekend when he was pictured on TV vomiting off the bike as the race started in the high mountains.
But never discount Cav: yesterday I wrapped up my work day in time to watch the final sprint and he came from several places behind and beat all of his younger, fitter rivals as he won the stage and took the record. A historic moment that saw me weeping tears of joy at my desk – a legacy that will almost certainly remain unbeaten for decades to come, if not forever. Chapeau, Mark.