Kinnock

It is very moving that we no longer have a Conservative government. It has blighted my middle adulthood, cast a dark shadow over how I view my fellow citizens, and made the country we live in immeasurably worse in every single way. Hopefully we never have one again.

It was a strange feeling staying up to watch on Thurs/Fri, though, because it was, statistically, of course, just a little disappointing. I told myself beforehand to just be happy if Labour won and, in particular, just be happy if Labour got over 400, but, still, we were all secretly hoping that Farage got put back in his box and that the Tories be reduced to 50 or 60. Was never going to happen of course, but I only mean to say it was not, as experienced, an unambiguously joyful night. 

Only once did I allow it to really sink in, did I really feel a brief moment of enormous joy that the national nightmare was over. That was when Neil Kinnock was talking. Still going strong, old Kinnock, grieving, rueful and proud, talking more rich and romantic common sense than almost anyone else.

Somewhere in my childhood I became left-wing. I guess I wasn't left-wing in 1987, when I was 8, and I was told that Kinnock's Labour might shut down my public school. That seemed a bit much. 

But I think I was by 1992, just about. I liked Kinnock, for one thing. He lived near me, and I saw him occasionally. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up once (though I stuck my tongue out). His house had a nice red door. But, trivialities aside, by the age of 13, I was moving towards myself. 

People really thought Labour were going to win that year. I remember watching what I think was the National TV Awards a month or so before the election, and a writer called Alan Plater, who won a lifetime achievement award, gave a speech about the hope of a Labour government and the damage done to the North and the arts and communities by the Tories, and I think that was the first time i caught the bug, little public school boy sitting in front of his telly in Ealing. Me with my Brassed Off/Our Friends in the North politics.

This is the real shit, I thought. This is going to be great. 

It wasn't to be. To be fair, Major's much-mocked 92-97 is probably the least vile Tory government of my lifetime, and I didn't spend my teenage years as a rampant lefty, as religion took over, but mine was always a pretty socialist Christianity, and by the time the God disappeared, the politics were solidly entrenched.

So I cried a little when Neil Kinnock was talking on Thursday night, because he reminded me that it's hard, whatever the circumstances, for Labour to get in. Very fucking hard. Because the other lot lie and cheat and load the dice and people fall for it, and people hold Labour to a far higher standard, of course, and too many people don't realise that it really is important to be "not as shit". "Not as shit" in every way, every day, for 14 years, would have been an awful lot less shit, even when it seemed like it was a bit shit.

Anyway, there's no time to fuck around now. The Corbynite left, which i'd broadly thought I belonged to, from a distance, without the bad stuff, has really disgraced itself by its inability to not respond like spoilt babies. I hate the phrase "the adults are back in charge" but, ok, we'll see.