So, this week was the General Election and – to no one’s surprise – the Conservatives are out and Labour are in. I don’t know about the rest of you, but to me this doesn’t feel quite as momentous an occasion as it did when Labour got in in 1997. Back then there was cake and early morning partying in the staffroom. I think, as teachers, we really believed that Tony Blair and his ‘education, education, education’ would make a difference to us – the National Curriculum (a cupboard full of files and not a single word about fun, as my teacher mentor Mr Deakin told me when I first said I was thinking about teaching) might be overhauled, the workload might be decreased, there might be some proper thinking about what children needed to know for the 21st century rather than what they needed to know to pass a SAT. They made a start with the Rose Report, and were doing great things for early years like Sure Start and the children’s centres, but all these things vanished into the ether when they got voted out again in 2010.
Perhaps we are all more jaded about politics, post-Brexit, post-Partygate, post-pandemic. Post Johnson and his constant lies and calculated buffoonery*. Post-Liz Truss and her failure to outlast a lettuce. And now, post-Sunak after his drowned rat announcement of a snap election soundtracked/derailed by D:Ream’s Labour anthem, his well-timed Euros gaffe in Wales, his inability to read a room and his total lack of understanding of life for non-billionaires in a cost-of-living crisis. Or – as I read this week – ‘cossie livs’. Dear gods. This did at least provide meme fodder during the campaign – poor Rishi and his lack of a satellite dish! When I was teaching in Hackney the kids thought I was poor as I only had five channels on my telly, so Rishi’s family must have been really broke.
The more cynical pundits have suggested that Sunak was deliberately trying to lose the election – you can’t offload a government in the way you would a business, after all, and he is at heart a businessman. Bowing out gracefully isn’t really a Tory thing, so perhaps the most he could do was call this election and hope for the worst (or the best, depending on your point of view).
The constant banging on about migrants and small boats (although legal migration dwarfs illegal by many, many thousands even post-Brexit: 29,437 illegal vs 685,000 legal in 2023) has precipitated the rise of the Reform Party resulting in the inevitable election (at his 8th attempt) of the loathsome Farage in, unsurprisingly, Clacton. The blue wall of Essex took a serious dent this week, in fact, although sadly the Conservative hold on Epping Forest and Brentwood and Ongar was maintained. Reform came in second in Brentwood and Ongar and I’ve never been so grateful to a Tory before – despite there being a credible Labour candidate and, as a first, leaflet campaigns by all the parties. Wales, bless them, have booted out all the Tories at last – perhaps they noticed the lack of funding post-Brexit when those EU roads stopped being built?
Anyway, as the song says – things can only get better, if only because they couldn’t really get worse. Also, Larry the Cat has been all over social media and he’s outlasted the lot of them.
*The sly characterisations of fictionalised politicians in Mick Herron’s Slough House series are excellent – read them!
Cover image: https://www.sadanduseless.com/funny-hedgehog-cakes-gallery/
Things making me happy this week
- Using some scraps from a Bazaar grab bag and some Indian fabric to patch a bag for a try at Kantha stitching
- A lovely afternoon with the extended family for Timeshare Teenager 1’s baby shower – the actual showers held off for the afternoon after 24 torrential hours
- An excellent parent’s evening for Thing 2. We shall keep her another year then.
- Not the football, that’s been extremely boring
- A lot of reading
And that’s it for the week – hope election Santa brought you what you wanted this week! Today I am off to Cally Road Festival with our lovely illustrator and Thing 2 – please wish for good weather!
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Taken – Robert Crais
Slough House/Bad Actors – Mick Herron
Down Under – Bill Bryson (Audible)
Shadowstitch – Cari Thomas
What Kirsty did next 