The State We're In

Niall’s a tad annoyed about Theresa May’s decision to call an election

What does she think we are, ballot box junkies? Jonesing for the booth in the school and the village hall? Afflicted with a yen for the pen-on-a-chain? At the time of writing, Our Great Leader has, a few days ago, called a snap general election, after promising five times that she wouldn’t, to secure a mandate that she claims she already has, in order to pursue a programme that she spent a year actively campaigning against. This is British politics, 2017. Someone show me the way out of this rabbit-hole.

It must be nice, being a vicar’s daughter (I know - Our Great Leader hardly ever mentions that, does she?), and having a personal hotline to God. It must be nice, having an imaginary friend to guide you, to steer you, to reveal His messages through cryptic symbol and coded happenstance that only you, being besties with him and all, know how to decipher. Apparently, this occurred to Our Great Leader on a walking trip around Dolgellau. There among the great green swells and crystal streams, the Excalibur-ringing stones and flat blank lakes, it was revealed to her that what ‘The People’ are longing for, howling for, is another trudge to the voting booth.

Why? Well, to see off the opposition, of course; to tell them that, in this mother of all democracies, there must be no dissent, no holding-to-account, no undermining whatsoever of Our Great Leader’s supreme will. Damn that democratic opposition, democratically opposing; how dare they. What was the quote? ‘The country is coming together, but parliament isn’t’.

The country is not coming together, as anyone outside the wishful-thinking Westminster bubble can see; it is riven with chasms. And as for parliament - that is not supposed to be united; division is at its very heart. Without division, it is useless, hollowed-out, utterly unfit for purpose, an echo chamber only for Our Great Leader’s pronouncements.

“Crush the Saboteurs!” shrieked the Daily Mail (and that’s her other bezzie, the non-imaginary one). But this represented, of course a ‘free press’, which Our Great Leader loves. Save your outrage for something more deserving, like Cadbury’s, which didn’t leave the word ‘Easter’ out of its chocolate egg hunt (which anyone logging onto easter@cadburys.com could attest). There’s Her other friends, in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, nodding their approval at this too. The enemy within? The dissenting voice? Crush it. Demonise it; annihilate it. It is not of ‘The People’. You cannot hear it. This is not the time for nuance, or detail, or even independent thought; this is black-and-white. You are either with us or against us, and if you’re against us, you will be crushed. Obey. Obey. British politics, 2017.

Hysterical? Exaggeration? Over-the-top? Look again at the covers, last week, of the gutter press. And last night, I watched a programme about voting intentions in the Valleys, where polls suggest that Our Great Leader may, after nearly two centuries, regain seats. Why? Well, ‘The People’ do not trust the leader of the vilified opposition to be strong enough to rectify or remedy the savageries and depredations that the party of Our Great Leader has inflicted; so they plan to cast their vote for Our Great Leader instead. Political idiocy has never been starker. Do not think. Cultural suicide has never been entered into with more enthusiasm, more thoughtless welcome, more hopeless glee. Is a con or a fraud still despicable if its victims are so keen to be conned and defrauded?

And that’s another word - ‘fraud’. As I write, 30 of Our Great Leader’s minions are under investigation by the Electoral Commission; they effectively bought their votes two years ago, is the gist. 30 of them, and, at the time of writing, OGL has a parliamentary majority of 12. Do the sums. Not even her bezzie can get her out of this one, but maybe her good buddies in Fleet Street can. Now you must call for constitutional upheaval. Distract, and do it with dead eyes and dead delivery because in that lies the illusion of conviction. No misgiving, no whisper of conscience, can be countenanced. Crush such voices. They must be crushed.

Friends in the far North, and across the Celtic Deeps - they’re refusing to be crushed. They’re not on their knees yet. Here in Wales, on the whole (with the honourable exceptions of the capital and ardalau Cymraeg), after last night’s vox pops and the dashboard-dog-nodding-heads behind OGL as she drivelled on in Bridgend, there seems to be acceptance of lapdog status; Stockholm Syndrome is in evidence, capitulation, the cowed and cringing love of the slave for the man with the whip. There’s the young, maybe, but Christ what tonnage of expectation has been dumped on their shoulders, and what responsibility, and, yes, what undeserved punishment. Yet another night of swingometers and Dimbleby-isms approaches; yet another morning of nausea. On her Damascene walk through Eryri, I wonder if she heard it, Our Great Leader; wonder if she heard the sad little cough, the pitiful little hiccup, as, in its cave, the red dragon folded its wings over its face and, finally, died?