Friday the 13th

There are days when depression creeps up on you for no apparent reason, You are smote by inertia. It’s a struggle to get out of bed, to get dressed, to do anything. Why, oh why, you ask yourself, but there is no answer.

Today there is an answer and it is very clear.

The guy I once thought was my guy, the guy I thought could restore the Labour Party, has instead destroyed it. I wasn’t there to watch it unfold. Initially I thought it was just Blairite backlash and, given how little regard I have for Blairites, it didn’t bother me. And then I started talking to friends visiting from the UK and heard about the Momentum cabal, which did give me pause for thought. And then the stories of anti-Semitism emerged.

Now I know all too well the role Rupert Murdoch and other right wing press barons can play in bringing down Labour leaders. (With the exception of Tony Blair who wasn’t really Labour at all.) I can just imagine the bile-filled pages of the Sun in the run up to the election.

I also understand that there were large areas in northern and middle England that voted in favour of leaving the European Union three years ago and just wanted the bloody job done. So, yes, Brexit played a role in the outcome of yesterday’s election. Corbyn and the Labour party gave these frustrated Brexiteers no reason to vote for them.

I didn’t want Jeremy Corbyn elected prime minister yesterday. He didn’t deserve it. I wanted another hung Parliament and the possibility it offered that there might yet be a second referendum.

I certainly did not want the Labour party decimated. I did not want – nor did I ever expect – to see communities like Blyth and Sedgefield, cold-heartedly destroyed by Margaret Thatcher, to turn their backs on Labour and vote for Mr Get Brexit Done.

I have been in a state of shock since the moment yesterday when the polls closed and the BBC delivered its bombshell prediction of a Tory landslide.

The inexorable rule of Boris has begun and will continue for at least five, quite possibly ten, years. Brexit is unstoppable. The country is broken and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put it together again.

Listening to various Tory pundits last night referring to the Conservatives as the party of the working class would have made me laugh out loud if I hadn’t been so thoroughly swallowed up by depression.

Of course those northern voters will rue the day they handed control to Bojo. There will be no new hospitals, no massive investments in social services, no new affordable housing and the full, horrifying economic implications of Britain’s divorce from the EU will be most sorely felt by them.

The Tories may talk about compassionate Conservatism, but compassion simply isn’t in their DNA. The working class can kiss their ass, they’ve got a huge majority at last.

I’m a bit short on compassion myself at the moment. I can’t feel sorry about what is coming for those northern communities. As far as I’m concerned today they’ll get what they deserve.

As for Jeremy Corbyn, never mind sticking around to oversee the Labour party’s period of sober reflection. It’s time for you to exit, stage left.

Gawd, help us.