July 4th: Indifference Day
My spicy hot take on the news. Actual news that just happened.
Well, the primary school kid right into stopping small boats, and Rwanda finally caved to pressure. Or perhaps he found his iPhone in the high cupboard where his maw had planked it, but whatever happened, the wee chap has decided it’s election time. As I write this I can honestly say I am completely unbothered. Like not fucked at all. Sure, the Tories have thoroughly fucked the UK, as is their MO, but are the alternatives going to be any better?
Well, aye, because short of opening a portal to hell and sweeping half of the country into it, the next government couldn’t be any worse. I am totally unenthused, however. I am completely and utterly underwhelmed.
The case against Starmer? Well, from praising Margaret Thatcher to recruiting a contemptible racist into the party to being personally involved in the extradition of Julien Assange, rolling back on pretty much every promise he made and not to mention the engineered antisemitism scandal within his own party, the case is pretty clear. His views on Palestine sadly do not mark him out, loathsome as they may be.
If our country was a dirty window, then Thatcher threw a boulder through it, telling us that she was cleaning it. Now, all these years later, as we trample through the broken glass, we face the prospect of having two Labour PMs (Blair & Starver) hewn in her image, content to pretend that more of the same, but with smaller rocks will somehow work. There’s no window left, bais.
Whilst the English have the binary choice of which colour they would like their Tory rosette to be, here in Scotland, we have a bit more choice—or at least the illusion of it. Since we fucked the Indy vote a decade ago, Scotland has been rather keen on the SNP. The Scottish Nationalists are, to put it bluntly, fucking strange. Ranging from the sensible, Tony Benn-inspired Mhairi Black to Kate Forbes and her anti-gay marriage stance, and probably further to the right in many cases, the SNP is a single-issue roof under which many views shelter. I have always been pro-independence and still am, but I find that much of what the SNP do is unsatisfactory. Like the other two parties mentioned (cos who really gives two fucks about the Lib Dems?!?!?!), the SNP are part of the reason we are where we are as a country. So, can they rely on my vote? They are a bit of a busted flush if independence ain’t happening. Our current deal with England means that any Scottish parliament will be constrained and under the bootheel of Westminister, something I wish 55% of Scots had bothered to consider a decade ago. But here we are, Brexit and all.
So who’s left? Well, there’s the Greens. All sounds great until you challenge their stances on tackling climate change. They, like the SNP, jump on no nuclear because it sounds cool rather than committing to investing in research and development of large-scale solutions to carbon-free energy, which has to include nuclear—albeit a much cleaner and less frightening version of what we have just now (such as molten salt/Thorium or fusion). The greens make nice sounding noises, but just like the bigger parties, they ain’t got any real vision.
In short, none of these people floats my boat. They all belong to the same class of imagination-less, professional politicians that, whilst they may have great intentions (or profess to, at any rate), they are part of an edifice built to deny all of us any real choice. No matter who we vote for, the rentiers shall keep our economy shite whilst paying for think tanks and news wanks to tell us that billionaire’s piss is just rain, and it’s good for you. I am, however, not totally dejected. Starmer will be the next PM, and he can’t be as bad as the procession of snivelling toads we’ve had to tolerate for almost fifteen years. Don’t be surprised, though, when a new type of bullshitter emerges, just as keen as the current crop of eedjits we have to tell us that everything is super and amazing. Until we figure out how to change things away from this total lack of democracy to something more structured and with less of a role for people with fat wallets, the only thing likely to change is the colour of the rosette.
I think I might just go on holiday on the 4th of July. Fuck it.