Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish.

For the last fourteen years my life has been getting gradually shitter and shitter. The country, also, has been gradually shitter and shitter. For the last fourteen years the Conservative party have been in power. David Cameron and Theresa May were awful people with awful policies but Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak (specifically Johnson, Truss is so deluded I doubt she even knows her own name) have been not far short of pure evil.

Yet incompetent at the same time. You can deal with bad bosses and you can deal with incompetent bosses but when they're both? That's when you're fucked. The polls for last night's general election were pointing towards a landslide although there was always the danger that some Farage fascists or Corbynista lunatics who believe he should contest, and lose, every general election would derail that. I hoped not. I think a step to the left is better than a step to the right - even if it's not as big a jump to the left as many of us would hope for.

So I got the Pringles (sour cream and onion, thanks for asking) and San Miguels in and tuned in to BBC1. Clive Myrie (who some friends suggested was drunk or worse) and Laura Kuenssberg at the helm and a team of Jeremy Vine (my old Eggheads chum, but not sure abot his werid hexagon graphics), Fiona Bruce, Victoria Derbyshire, Nick Watt, Naga Munchetty, Rita Chakrabarti, Kirsty Wark, Katie Razzall, Chris Mason, Aleem Maqbool, Dharshini David, and, of course, John Curtice - the don. 

Many of them using the word 'psephology' like it's going out of fashion. Co-comms came from Sadiq Khan, Neil Kinnock (a political hero of mine and one who mentioned Anuerin Bevan - my ultimate political hero - in 2024, in 2024!), Peter Mandelson, Steve Baker, Wes Streeting, Andrea Leadsom, Margaret Hodge, Dawn Butler (talking lots of sense), Daisy Cooper, David Bull (of Reform, not heard from him before but fear I will again), and Lee Cain. A master in bullshit.

Then the exit poll came in and the prediction was that Labour would take 410 seats (up 209) and the Tories 131 (down 241), with the Lib Dems on 61, and, very worryingly, thirteen seats predicted for Reform. Farage's pro-Putin, pro-Trump, xenophobic, racist party. In the end, Labour did a little bit better, the Lib Dems a lot better, and the Tories did worse. Reform, as it stands, only have one MP. The miserable frog faced fucking cunt they call Nigel Farage.

But on election night they don't hang around so next up was the race on for the first declaration It was won by Bridget Phillipson for Labour in the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency at 11.13pm. With Reform second. Way ahead of the Tories. About twenty minutes later nearby Blyth/Northumberland elected Ian Lavery from Labour (with Reform second - again). Which leads Leadsom to start claiming Tories have not been right wing enough and going on a boring and predictable rant about "woke stuff". Rather than losing because they've been a bunch of cunts.

Chris Mason asks her if there will be a "civil war" within the Conservative party in the coming months. I think there may well be. I think there's a strong chance they will merge with Farage's lot - and that Farage will insist he is given a top job - and from there he will chip away from within until he's either the leader or he has destroyed the Tories entirely. One of these scenarios is far more desirable than the other.

Other votes start trickling in. Sunderland Central (Labour first, Reform second), Swindon South (Heidi Alexander for Labour unseating a fairly big beast in the Conservative's Robert Buckland - the former Justice Secretary - who, to be fair, is pretty gracious in defeat - and angrily suggest there should be a different, more civil and more honest, future for the Tories, good luck with that), a Labour hold in Washington and Gateshead South.

They get the declarations in early in the North East. Clive Myrie and Jeremy Vine both get unnecessarily excited about the swingometer as more votes come in (all with Labour winning - good, all with Reform second - not good). This trend isn't bucked until 0137 when the Lib Dems take Harrogate and Knaresborough from the Tories (this tactical voting is working well) and, about ten minutes later, the Tories actually win, retain, a seat. Rayleigh and Wickford in Essex, Mark 'Penfold' Francois (despite a 36% drop in vote share).

As it goes on, and results come in thick and thin, there is, as you might expect - things can only get more confusing, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. It's good that Labour regain Darlington, Cannock Chase, Stroud, Nuneaton (a classic swing seat), and keep Barnsley, Leeds West (Rachel Reeves looking likely to be the first ever female Chancellor in British history), Thurrock, and Scunthorpe. Some of the constituences have, of course, changed, boundaries have been altered, but the gist is the same.

It's really good when the repulsive scumbag, repellent grifter, George Galloway is kicked out. It's good, but more expected, to see Emily Thornberry (not a great speaker but a decent soul, I believe) and Angela Rayner (who I think is great) returned in Ashton-under-Lyne. It's even better when Grant Schapps (and all his pseudonyms) is kicked out. He's the sixth minister to go. Alex Chalk and Michael Fabricant follow him out of the door. Keir Starmer wins Holborn & St Pancras (though a man dressed as Elmo got nineteen votes) and potential Tory leader (but not now) Penny Mordaunt gets her arse handed to her on a plate in Portsmouth.

Bad news comes, primarily, with Reform's vote count and the weird phenomena of young people supporting them, possibly thinking Farage is a 'ledge' on TikTok. The first MP of theirs to be elected is Lee Anderson, 30p Lee, a person who has backed Corbyn, then Johnson, and now milkshake enthusiast Farage. A craven human being who will stand behind whatever populist he can find. A very very low note in a mostly positive night. That wanker Richard Tice wins in Boston and Skegness. Two places to cross off the holiday list.

There's also a weird group of people who imagine that British politicians can somehow influence what happens in Palestine and Israel. An ostensibly left wing group of 'useful idiots' who find themselves forever aligning with the far right. Their cheerleader, the horrendous grifter George Galloway, is kicked out in Rochdale after less than five months. That wanker will be back. Don't doubt it.,

We cut to another wanker, Nigel Farage, who is waffling away about "common sense" and wanting his "country back" and it becomes obvious to anyone who understands history that in Farage we can see the obvious signs that an already extant form of British fascism is taking over from what was once called the Conservative party. But he wins, of course he wins. Eight times he tried but now he's in. He'll be a truly, truly terrible MP but he will employ Trumpian tactics to suggest somehow the "elites", or the "deep state", are conspiring against him. Farage's success is by far the lowest point of an otherwise overwhelmingly positive evening.

I was fairly indifferent about comedy Lib Dem leader and candidate Ed Davey retaining, and more than doubling his majority in, Kingston & Surbiton (I think he's a decent cad even if my mate Richard thinks he's a "cunt") and I was also indifferent about Jeremy Corbyn getting in (he was a rubbish leader, promoted an anti-semitism that still poisons the far left, and lost two elections - but that was more down to his stupidity than anything else) but I was simply confused when Faiza Shaheen (wrongly, in my view, kicked out the Labour party) and the Tory candidate Shama Tatler allow the egregious Iain Duncan-Smith to retain Chingford and Woodford Green against the odds.

That was about as long as I lasted. I went to bed (after falling asleep on the couch) safe in the knowledge that the fourteen year shitshow of Tory chaos, corruption, cruelty, and criminality is finally over and that the future for me, my friends, and family should be happier, safer, and more prosperous. Though Donald Trump and Nigel Farage will do all they can to change that.

When I woke up both Truss and Rees-Mogg were gone (good riddance to bad rubbish, Rees-Mogg had to stand next to a man in a balaclava made of baked beans as his defenestration was announced), Basingstoke and Wrexham (two places where people I love live), and everybody I know and care about was happier than they have been for years. Following a night in which I wondered whoever thought up the idea of rosettes, I don't want to end on a sad note, I couldn't help noticing that the Labour politicians who have taken power intend to govern for the country. The Tory party, even in their pomp, did not promise that. They didn't aim to govern for the country. They didn't even aim to govern for their own party or their own party's supporters (who I am certain they loathed even more than their political opponents) but simply for themselves.

Well, thank fuck they're gone. I don't want to use the word Starmergeddon (a good title for the blog but I'm not a fan boy, leave that populist bullshit to the Corbyn and Johnson fans) but last night was a great result for the country. It'll take time - a lot of time - and it'll take money - to quote George Harrison "a whole lotta spendin' money" - but in Starmer and Labour I trust. I support and cherish the Labour party but the thing I love most right now. I love democracy. Fuck the Tories.