What a fussy lot some of you are. Last week, the left in England experienced one of its most stunning reverses since Margaret Thatcher crushed the Miners’ Strike.
We saw the defenestration of George Galloway, Ed Davey, Vince Cable, Ed Balls and Simon Hughes; we witnessed the utter humiliation of the Liberal Democrats; we saw the total repudiation by the electorate of Ed Miliband’s attempt to revive Socialism.
If you’re in any doubt what a glorious victory this was over the Forces of Darkness, just glance at the Wankerati’s Twitter feeds. They’re writhing like freshly-salted slugs. And I’m sorry but while salting slugs may be cruel, it’s also satisfying, fun and a necessary evil if you put the health of your salads before the right-to-life of ugly, blobby slime creatures.
Yet still, for one or two of you, it’s just not enough. You’re like an England fan after the 1966 World Cup going: “Yeah, but the third goal shouldn’t have been allowed and the first one was well dodgy, so really it was actually, strictly speaking, just a draw with Germany not a win.”
Bollocks to that, say I.
Whether you’re a sworn UKIPer or a diehard Conservative, Cameron’s victory on Friday represents a stunning triumph for all of us.
Among the things we have put off for at least the next four years are:
Higher taxes
The collapse of the UK economy
Insane Nanny State regulation and intervention
More onshore wind turbines
Ed Miliband on TV every day
Sure there may be things to quibble about – as no doubt we shall all be doing in the coming weeks and months. But the idea that we should feel miffed on behalf of the 3.7 million people who voted UKIP strikes me as a bit petulant and unreasonable. Yes, as I mentioned the other day, it’s jolly sad and unfair that after all that hard work Nigel Farage didn’t get his seat; and yes, of course it would have been nicer if we’d had a few more UKIPers joining the more robust Tory backbenchers in holding the wetter Cameroons to account. But overall, UKIP voters have ended up with a much, much better result from this election than, say, Labour voters or Lib Dem voters or Green voters, simply because of where they stand on the ideological spectrum. Face it, a Cameron government is much, much more likely to deliver something close to UKIP’s manifesto than a Miliband/SNP Coalition would have been.
The fact is that last Friday we all dodged a very enormous bullet. As you may recall from the hysterical and wrong piece I wrote on the eve of the election, I personally was pretty convinced we were going to spend the next five years being governed by a Coalition of rabid trots, kilted Nazis, squishy Lib Dems and eco loons.
That piece was entitled General Election: Why It All Went Wrong (pt 1).
But I’m not going to write part 2, at least not for a while, because I don’t think it did go wrong. Short of a magic hand coming out of the sky, plucking us instantly from the EU, destroying every wind farm, appointing Farage as Prime Minister, with a Cabinet including Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Owen Paterson, Ian Duncan Smith and Priti Patel, with the SNP losing every seat in Scotland to UKIP, I find it quite how to imagine how in the real world – rather than the fantasy one some of us stubbornly insist on inhabiting – this election could have gone any better.
I’m happy, anyway, and that’s the main thing. Those of you who want to remain stewing in your pits of bitterness and resentment, well, feel free. But I wish you wouldn’t because I need you all onside for the much greater struggle now beginning. First, we need to hold this government to account and make them do all the bold right-wing things they now have a massive mandate for doing. Second, we need to put the left properly back in their box. They’ve been getting a bit uppity of late – have you noticed? And it’s time we reminded them that WE not they are most representative of what real Britain really thinks.
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