What's a remainiac to do?

At the time of writing, the dreadful but effective Brexit Party was polling at  around 31%, incoherent Labour at 23%, resurgent Lib Dems at 16%, hapless Tories at 9%, the possible-surprise-package Greens at 9%, the dismal Change UK at 4% and the busted flush that is UKIP a puny 2%.

So, we have with Brexit and UKIP, two definite, unambiguous we-want-Brexit at all costs taking up 33% of the votes.

The other 67% features the unambiguous pro-remain/pro-people's vote/pro-revoke Article 50 parties at 29%. But here's the bit that's harder to quantify - who is pro-remain among those who still plan to vote for one of two increasingly pathetic major parties?

Among the 23% for Labour, there is a strong pro-remain component - there are still plenty of people, and not just Labour MEPs, who are pushing the line that a vote for Labour is a vote for a second vote and the best way to quell the charge of the Brexit Party in Brussels. And there are pro-remain Conservatives who may well be resigned to the fact that Theresa May's Brexit deal is as good as it will get for the UK outside the EU, but would open a quiet bottle of champagne if this whole Brexit shit-show was called off.

Those who are pro-remain probably add up to quite a bit more than the 33% Brexit/UKIP conglomerate. A Survation poll from May 17 revealed 51% support for remaining in the EU. This same poll found 68% of Labour voters and 47% of Conservative voters support remaining.

Obviously, we all know we can't put blind faith in polls but with around 67% of voters apparently not interested in either of the hardline Brexit parties, it would appear there is no appetite for a hard Brexit and possibly a diminishing appetite for any Brexit at all.

Thursday's European election will, most likely, be a protest vote for most people. If we leave the EU, as planned, on the new deadline of October 31, our latest batch of MEPs will only represent us for a few months. But for almost all of us, whether we're remainers or leavers, Thursday's vote is a chance for us to be heard. There is a lot of impotent rage right now. It has to come out somewhere and I'd rather it came out in the ballot box than on in riots on the streets.

For pro-remain voters - and I make no secret of being one of these people - it's a frustrating time. We don't want to see Nigel Farage emboldened any more. We look at him and his diabolical collection of candidates in utter despair. Ann Widdecombe hates women so much that she changed religion when the Church of England started ordaining us as vicars and, despite professing to be a Christian, she has no issue with pregnant women giving birth in shackles. Claire Fox takes a deliberately contrarian view on child pornography which is so awful that it's unclear whether she genuinely believes children would not be traumatised if they had to participate in simulated sex for the purposes of gratifying absolute sickos or she is just trolling for attention. Annunziata Rees-Mogg has had a long career writing articles about how to get rich off other people's misery. Lucy Harris has cheerfully said we'll just have to deal with 30 years of economic hardship as a price worth paying for Brexit.

To these awful charlatans, along with Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit hardships and job losses are for the little people. If you genuinely believe any of these people give a damn about you, I have a box of fishnet condoms in the boot of my car to sell you.

But it's too easy for me to sit here and slag off these people. I could sit her all night pulling them apart forensically but it's not going to make a difference. It won't change minds. It won't win hearts. If anything, every time a milkshake is thrown, it strengthens the resolve of the "LEAVE MEANS LEAVE!" crowd.

My fellow remainers and I should be pushing a positive case for remaining in the EU. This should have been the case back in 2016. There are so many benefits we will lose, many of which have not occurred to most people, particularly in the event of a disastrous no-deal Brexit.

International Development Secretary Rory Stewart was seen the other day quite rightly pointing out that a no-deal Brexit is not a destination -  it is stunning that he is not seen as a more serious leadership contender than Boris bloody Johnson among Tory members, but I digress. A no-deal crash-out is a starting point for a long, onerous process of negotiating with the EU, and with the rest of the world without the support of the EU. The inevitable outcome will be a deal with the EU that is not much different to Theresa May's deal, only it will leave the UK in an even weaker position. It will probably break up the UK.

A no deal Brexit is not a lark. It is not something to be flippant about. We will be the only country in the world trading under WTO rules for God-knows-how-long now that Mauritania is no longer solely trading this way. Surprise, surprise, this is because Mauritania is seeking to trade freely and closely with geographical neighbours in northern and western Africa and as part of the ever-closer African Union. Mauritania's example reflects a positive case for being part of close economic and free trade unions with the countries closest to your shores.

But none of this is being distilled by one pro-remain party that remainers can all galvanise around. Instead, our votes will be cast in different directions - there is certainly a strong groundswell of support for the Liberal Democrats, whether those who are voting yellow with a clothes peg on their nose or they are simply energised by the #BollocksToBrexit slogan. And I predict the Greens will do better than expected on Thursday.

As for Change UK, it has scooped up plenty of smart people who have, it now appears, thrown their political careers on a bonfire. It's a shame - it could have been so good. There was a frisson of hope and energy when people started defecting from the Labour and Conservative benches. A lot of we remainers really wanted it to be good - like a new Amy Pohler movie. But it has not been good. Not even the logo is good. The black lines on a white background look like a flag to wave while opposing gay rights, which I am guessing is not the vibe they were going for. And the message about changing politics has been swept up in a tidal wave of critics yelling that the party is all about preserving the status quo rather than changing a damn thing.

That's the problem with pro-remain messaging. Few of us think the EU is perfect but we do believe the benefits are still immense, that we should stay in, retain our influence in the world, play our role in reforming the EU where required, emphasising how we are made stronger by the four freedoms, and not see a diminished UK make desperate trade deals with the US, Russia and China. It's just that it's bloody hard to encapsulate this complex and nuanced message on a bumper sticker, bus or billboard.

On the other side of the fence, the simple soundbites such as "take back control", "leave means leave, "let's go WTO" and "no deal, no problem" have cut though the noise. And remainers, all of us, may have left it too late to fight back with better arguments, with positivity and at the ballot box.

The form guide of the damned... Runners and riders for our next PM

Theresa May is a dead woman walking, although her cadaverous prime ministerial form has managed to stagger on for longer than many expected. But she will not be the PM to contest the next election, which will presumably be against Jeremy Corbyn, unless he is, I dunno, caught interfering with barnyard fowl in the speaker's chair or something. 

As such, the country is witnessing the unedifying spectacle of assorted Tory MPs on leadership campaign manouevres that are as subtle as Liberace's bathroom - Poundland Machiavellians, the whole sorry lot of them. How about on this Grand National weekend we take a stroll through the terrible contenders who might replace the terrible incumbent, shall we? None of them are likely to get shot if they break a leg but, rest assured, they are all more concerned with not breaking the Conservative Party than they are about not breaking the country.

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is the man who wasted money while Mayor of London on everything from a cable car that is used most days by approximately three people and a Basset hound called Trevor to secondhand water cannon that ended up being sold for scrap for £11,000 to a £1.4 million fiasco in which he thought gluing pollution to the road might help London meet, funnily enough, EU air quality standards. Boris Johnson is the man who is originally responsible for people whining about Europe because of supposed regulations about things like the shape of strawberries and the bendiness of bananas, after he got bored while play-acting at being an EU correspondent for the Telegraph and simply made shit up. Boris Johnson is the man who played no small role in ensuring Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe won't get out of an Iranian prison any time soon. Boris Johnson is the man who buggered off to Afghanistan at our expense to avoid facing an embarrassing vote on the expansion of Heathrow Airport. 

Boris Johnson is an irresponsible, verbally incontinent, principle-free, contrived, self-serving pedlar of clown car fuel. As such, he should not be anywhere near 10 Downing Street, yet William Hill has the odds of him being next PM at 9/2. 

Dominic Raab

In these absurd times, it is absolutely fine that this glorified nightclub bouncer with an amoeba's grasp of European geography should be considered a serious contender for the highest political office in the land. 

He said, out loud, in a public forum, where other people could hear him, that he "hadn't quite understood the full of extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing."

Despite this blinding flash of clarity about why it might be important to ensure trade remains seamless with our nearest neighbours, Raab insists on styling himself as Mr Hard Brexit. Sure, he, along with Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, were the trio of self-interested flakes who suddenly decided Theresa May's rancid Brexit deal was alright after all, but he still likes to come across as some kind of Brexit enforcer. This is despite resigning from the post of Brexit minister over work he'd done himself during his ill-starred tenure, claiming as recently as March 21 that a no-deal Brexit will be just dandy - and, scandalously, admitting that he had not properly read the Good Friday agreement. Never mind that reading the Good Friday agreement from cover to cover should be a bare minimum requirement for anyone who thinks they can sort this shitshow out. 

Here's a crib note, Dom - Strand 3 is the bit that you really need to read to understand why a hard Brexit with a hard Irish border could see a return to the violence that had been left behind 21 years ago. But rather like Johnson, Raab doesn't do details either. 

Sajid Javid

All hail The Saj! For that is how he refers to himself, apparently - and who doesn't want a bellend who refers to himself in the third person for PM, eh?

So far, as Home Secretary, he is proving remarkably bold. Stripping Shamima Begum of her citizenship was clearly a populist move - it won't do a damn thing to keep the UK safe but it plays well to his crowd. And it appears that his crowd are UKIP types who are desperate to appear progressive in a reductive "some of my best friends are Asian" kind of way. 

Today, he is happily riding out the remainer outcry about the words "European Union" being removed from British passports, even though we're still in the EU. He says it's simply more efficient to take these words off the front of passports now, even though that explanation makes precisely no sense.

Last week, he loyally joined forces with Theresa May to urge hospital staff and teachers to spot young people who might be at risk of being involved in knife crime. Unsurprisingly, there does not appear to be any evidence of extra funding for this plan - no mention of when already-overworked NHS and teaching staff will be trained to spot the signs, whatever they may be, or how such training will be funded, or who would conduct the training (probably G4S after the bang-up job they did with Olympic security...), or whether more staff would be employed in hospitals and schools to help with this new addition to everyone's job description, or what sort of protection might be on offer for hospital and school staff who report on such young people and find themselves on the receiving end of threats themselves. Nope. It's just another pie-in-the-sky idea with no real money attached to it, and it will be as effective as a fishnet condom.

But, like Johnson and Raab, The Saj is another one who does not feel the need to do details. Which brings us nicely to... 

Michael Gove

In the Govester's defence, he was quoted out of context when he said people were "tired of experts". He actually said: "I think people in this country have had enough of experts ... with organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best and consistently getting it wrong." 

To be fair, there is a grown-up conversation to be had around this idea but, just as we are no longer in an era where potential PMs need to be at all details-oriented, we are in the era of bumper sticker politics. It is cheap soundbites that win the day. While it was easy to be outraged at Michael Gove saying we've all had enough of experts, it was a soundbite that played well with the leave voters who are perceived by all these runners and riders to be the people they need to stay in power. 

And with Gove, we have another one who breezes through scandals with effortless ease. He has brushed off questions about whether he was aware of any illegalities in the Vote Leave campaign by simply saying he had no idea because he was too busy campaigning in the lead-up to the referendum. Still, he was only the co-convener of Vote Leave so it's not as if he was involved with any of the major campaign decisions. 

So, in this case, we have someone who probably does do details and may well have been aware of certain unsavoury goings-on, but in this case, it serves him well to bat off any hard questions from journalists by portraying himself as a hardy little Brexit foot soldier, out there on the campaign trail back in 2016, not really having any time to be aware of any irregularities. Details, like any fallout from a hard Brexit, are for the little people. Someone else can worry about those piffling trifles.

Andrea Leadsom

Oh good! At last! We have a woman in the running to be the next PM! Oh shit. It's Andrea Leadsom. This is the woman who made people defend Theresa May after Leadsom made appalling comments about May's childlessness last time she aspired to the top job. It was a nasty, unnecessary cheap shot, particularly as (a) there are plenty of good reasons to criticise Theresa May no matter what side of the political fence you sit on and (b) nobody ever starts wondering out loud about whether a man's fatherhood status is relevant to his ability to do pretty much any job.

Thanks to crap from the likes of Leadsom, women really can't win - we're either being told that we're bad employees because we'll all sod off to have babies and then want silly things like maternity leave and affordable childcare or we're told that if we don't breed, we've somehow failed as women. With this in mind, not to mention her hateful voting record, it's quite clear that a Leadsom government would not be a feminist statement. Still, that's probably not her demographic either so why would she care?

It is pretty clear that a Leadsom government, just like the government of any of these contenders, would look to things like further NHS privatisation and a one-sided trade deal with the US, particularly in the event of a hard Brexit, which she favours with almost religious fervour. 

Jeremy Hunt

It is not exactly a state secret that any of these contenders are more concerned with their own careers and with the survival of the Conservative Party than doing what is best for Britain. But of these craven cynics, it is Hunt's mask that fell the hardest. 

He appeared on Marr last month and said that it would be "devastating" for the Conservative Party if Brexit wasn't delivered. He doubled down on this astounding rhetoric by saying his party was in "perilous waters" and that the Conservative Party would be blamed if the UK didn't leave the EU. To which anyone who gives a damn about the national interest should say "So bloody what?". 

Of course, it is naive to suggest that either major party is absolutely devoted to serving the people of this country and that nobody is obsessed by getting into power - it is what they all want - but for it to be said so brazenly was a new low, even for Jeremy Hunt. He was Britain's longest-serving Health Secretary and, on his watch, A&E waiting times went up, funding in real terms went down and junior doctors went on strike. I'm not sure what one expected when a failed marmalade mogul was given this job rather than, say, an expert. 

Like Johnson, Hunt has flip-flopped on Brexit, campaigning for remain and now trying to out-UKIP UKIP in his quest to fly the flag for a hard Brexit while simultaneously staying loyal to Theresa May's Brexit deal. Like Johnson, he is not a conviction politician. He is a snake in the grass but he is not bright enough to be truly sly. Like Johnson and Raab, it is a mystery why he is considered a serious contender for Prime Minister or why his message, whatever the hell it is, would resonate with anyone.

Matthew Hancock

Who? Oh yes, that's right, the talking potato who is the Health Secretary... Nope, again no idea why he thought he had anywhere near enough runs on the board to make a serious bid for the Tory party leadership. Next! 

Ian Duncan-Smith

Oh Christ, not him again... He already had a go at leading the Tories between 2001 and 2003 and look how well that went. To paraphrase former Australian PM Paul Keating, when asked about the resurrection of the political career of one of his rivals, Andrew Peacock, is IDS another souffle who could rise twice? Next!

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Et sanguinem infernum, as Rees-Mogg himself might say... He is another one, like Johnson, who puts on a ridiculous persona to ensure he gets a leave pass no matter how awful he might be. Last week, he was lumbering about, moping like a gothic Eeyore, as reporters asked him if he was going to try and convince other MPs to support Theresa May's deal, after he finally voted for it as "the least worst option". He looked like a man who had no real zeal for pushing for a hard Brexit. In any case, he is so wealthy that it doesn't matter how things pan out - it's not as if his six kids will go without shoes any time soon. 

I predict that, assuming the next Tory party leader is a Brexiter, Rees-Mogg will get a nice cabinet post. For all the talk of him being the next PM, William Hill only has him as a 50/1 chance. But, hey, if you think a man who has let his religious beliefs interfere with his parliamentary votes on abortion and same-sex marriage should be in charge, knock yourself out! I'm jetlagged, I need pasta and I'm overwhelmed by the state of it all. Don't even get me started on some of the absolute melts on the other side of the house...

Image by Karen Arnold

Local Elections 2018: Limited gloating opportunities

Hopes were high for post-local election gloating for both major parties, particularly in London. Here, Labour hubristically thought they might take Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, and Wandsworth councils from the Conservatives and wrest Barnet back from no overall control. The Tories won all four. 

Meanwhile, the Conservatives thought they were in with a shot in Sutton but the scandal-ridden local Liberal Democrats prevailed, albeit with a 12-seat haemorrhage. The Conservatives also lost pro-remain Richmond-upon-Thames and Kingston-upon-Thames to the Liberal Democrats.

Jeremy Corbyn had planned to go to Barnet in North London to gloat today but instead, there was a last-minute change of plans and he travelled some 240 miles to Plymouth, the one bright spot for Labour, although by no means a bellwether for the national mood. Labour gained four seats in Plymouth and the Conservatives lost one.

Theresa May, meanwhile, went to Wandsworth to gloat over a result that should surprise nobody with a functioning brain stem - the Conservatives have presided over a low council tax borough where the streets are clean, the parks are green and crime rates are low. That said, the Conservatives only clung on by 141 votes and lost eight seats, while Labour gained seven.

But this is not just about London - across England, there was not a whole lot for either Labour or the Conservatives to sing about. Labour lost Nuneaton to the Conservatives in the Midlands, the Conservatives lost Plymouth to Labour. South Cambridgeshire has gone to the Liberal Democrats, a previously Conservative council. Three Rivers, in Hertfordshire, went to the Liberal Democrats after formerly being under no overall control.

It is true that at local elections, local issues are important. For example, Britain is a nation obsessed by the bins - you don't have to look too far to find someone who will complain that bin collections are not frequent enough, there are too many bins, too few bins, not enough is being recycled, recycling is an onerous burden, some idiot keeps fly-tipping instead of disposing of festering mattresses responsibly and so on and so forth...

But it would be naive to suggest that people didn't use this election to give the major parties a kicking over bigger issues than bins, parking, potholes and dog poo, particularly in regard to Brexit. Leavers and remainers are feeling equally powerless as they watch this government negotiate with the European Union with all the agility of a walrus on a trapeze and struggle to figure out exactly what Labour policy on this not-so-insignificant matter. On top of this, plenty of people are dismayed with the way Labour has dealt with serious accusations of anti-semitism. Therefore, the local elections were seen by many as a good excuse for a protest vote. 

So how did this pan out? It panned out pretty well for the Liberal Democrats and Greens with both parties picking up the votes of pro-remain voters, many of whom are currently feeling politically homeless. 

Overall, the Liberal Democrats increased their share of the vote by three percentage points to 16% at the time of writing - they were on 444 seats nationally, an increase of 49. This included some curious results, including Labour losing a seat to the Lib Dems in the Pallion ward of Sunderland council. That would be the same Sunderland that voted 60% in favour of Brexit, despite the area's biggest private sector employer, Nissan, setting up shop there in 1984, urged on by Margaret Thatcher who successfully sold the Japanese car-maker the idea of basing a factory there because of free access to the European market. 

The Green party won a few more seats - at the time of writing, they had 34 seats across the country, up from five. Interestingly, more than 80 per cent of the council seats gained by the Greens were snaffled from the Conservatives. That would indicate that there is a handful of seriously disillusioned Tory remainers out there, as well as Labour losing pro-EU voters to the Greens.

UKIP proved themselves to be a spent force in British politics with a pitiful three seats across the country, a drop of 121 seats. It would seem that the Conservative Party has scooped up these votes, suggesting the Tories are appealing strongly to a voter base that seeks massive cuts to immigration, probably doesn't give a toss about anyone affected by the Windrush scandal and is startlingly sanguine about the prospect of the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal and having to revert to WTO rules. Last night and this morning, as election results rolled in, Conservatives were happy to go on TV and say they had gained votes from UKIP.

And this is a crucial difference between Labour and the Conservatives right now - the Conservatives are taking a pragmatic approach. Plenty of Tories are appalled by UKIP but they will cheerfully Hoover up their voters. Hell, the Conservatives have cravenly taken control of Pendle council in Lancashire thanks to the reinstating of a councillor who was suspended from the party for retweeting a racist joke. It's not necessarily a principled approach but this is not an era for conviction politicians in Theresa May's desperate Conservative Party. 

Meanwhile, a common tactic in the murky world of Twitter political debate among Jeremy Corbyn's increasingly delusional Momentum fans is to accuse Labour-leaning Corbyn critics of being "red Tory scum", "Blairites" and to "fuck off and vote Tory" - colour me shocked to learn that this mindless strategy has not been converted into enough votes to control crucial councils up and down England.

The results are not really a ringing endorsement for either equally incompetent party leader. The only saving grace to come out of all this is that we might be spared having to vote again this year. Another general election would probably result in a similar outcome to the status quo - and Theresa May does not need two consecutive elections in which she recklessly sought a huge mandate but emerged with a grip on power like a limp handshake. Her reputation as a "safe pair of hands" is in tatters, Brexit negotiations will continue to be a car crash, and the Windrush scandal won't quite go away, despite Amber Rudd stepping down as Home Secretary.

But it all boils down to a big pile of "meh" with a huge helping of "whevs". With votes counted in 136 of 150 councils at the time of writing, Labour has 1,896 councillors, an increase of 58, and the Conservatives have 1,256 councillors, a drop of nine. This looks like an easy gloat for Labour but their problem is that this has not translated into a red landslide of taking control of councils across the UK. And it is not an easy gloat for the Tories because nothing much really changes for them, apart from losing Plymouth.

And people up and down this green and pleasant land will still complain about the bins.

Photography by Martin Deutsch/Flickr

Oh God, we're voting again... *opens wine*

Way to kill the long weekend buzz, Theresa! There we all were, eating chocolate and hot cross buns, getting drunk, and generally enjoying a four-day weekend when - BOOM! - the Prime Minister calls another sodding election.

Theresa May strode out the front of 10 Downing Street looking for all the world like she was about to declare the Hunger Games open, and took on an increasingly megalomaniacal tone as she announced that on 8 June, Britain is again going to the polls. Whoop-de-doo! She won't give a flying fuck if there is a low turnout due to sheer voter fatigue as long as she can shore up her majority and continue to drive us over the hard Brexit cliff.

It has been said already that she is gambling on an increased majority to quell the noisy Eurosceptic Tories but that would depend on how many Eurosceptics end up getting elected. She may well find herself with more hard Brexiters to contend with on her side of the house.

Her delusional rhetoric about how the country is united behind Brexit but Westminster is not is laughable. Or it would be if it wasn't so damn effective. For weeks now, she has been implying that if you are not 100 per cent behind her car crash of a Brexit, you hate this country and you are an unpatriotic scoundrel who probably uses bunting for bog roll.

Of course this is some serious short-termism on the part of Theresa May. She can bang on until she is blue in the face about how a Conservative victory will give her a strong Brexit mandate but basically she is pouncing on her 20-point poll lead. She knows she can win this thing in the next few weeks. She is out-UKIPping UKIP so those votes are hers, except for a few hardcore racists, there are the safe Tory seats that she can still count on, there will be Labour seats that will fall to the Conservatives - and she knows there are plenty of ardent remainers who cannot vote for Corbyn and won't vote Tory, but she is banking on there not being enough of these people to topple her.

The simple fact is that  Corbyn has never been pro-EU, has so far enabled Theresa May's hard Brexit, and he has outed himself as drinking the moronic lefty Brexit Kool-Aid. His recent comments on how great a post-EU Britain will be show he is trying to scoop up UKIP votes by being the third choice for UKIP voters after UKIP and the Tories. He has all the political acumen of a slow-learning kitten and, as such, he is a gift for the Tories.

If Labour lose the election in the predicted landslide, one can only assume that will be the end of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Or will he be the party's unflushable turd? If he does step down after an electoral annihilation and someone who is not a Russia-and-Iran-and-Venezuela-and-Cuba-dictatorship apologist nor an overgrown student protester is put in charge of Labour, that may well give Theresa May something to lose sleep over. But not for now. And "for now" is her focus.

"For now" means that not only can she capitalise on Corbyn's terrible polling but she can also nip the threat to the Tories by Arron Banks in the bud. I'm sure she will pull something out of her craven bag of tricks to appeal to the worst racists.

For the remainers who would not trust Corbyn to lead Brexit negotiations any more than they'd trust May and her incompetent clown car of Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis on such a massive task, this election is quite the pickle. (Disclaimer: I count myself to be in that pickle).

There will be plenty of voters willing to overlook Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron's religious conservatism on abortion - after all, he has not shown any signs that he would override the pro-choice views that prevail within the party. He abstained on the same-sex marriage vote and now says he regrets that decision and would now vote in favour. People seem to be forgiving of him on these two issues. Whether there will be enough voters to forgive the party as a whole for the 2010-2015 coalition with Conservatives remains to be seen. It is on that issue that the potential success of the Liberal Democrats will hinge in this election.

Will the Greens gain any traction or are they a step too far to the left for many of those who will vote to oppose - or at least soften - Brexit? Brexit casts such a long shadow over pretty much every aspect of policy-making that for many, it will be impossible not to vote with this as the foremost issue. For those who voted remain, there will be some serious nose-holding in polling booths across the country on 8 June.

In any case, on any given day between now and 8 June, it will never be too early to start drinking. What a time to be alive!










Photography by Wojtek Szkutnik

A right royal Brexit mess

Reports emerged around Christmas that Queen Elizabeth II said she was in favour of Brexit but BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg did not report it at the time. This news story got lost in the speculation as to whether she was actually alive and not spending the festive season getting embalmed when she was meant to be at a church service.

In the meantime, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen is indeed still alive, but there were some shrill voices screaming about BBC bias because Laura Kuenssberg did not report the story before the referendum. She did not report the story because she only had the one source and, for a story as potentially explosive as the Queen expressing a clear view on such a contentious issue, this was quite simply not enough to run it.

Without a second source, the story was on very shaky ground. Laura Kuenssberg followed good journalistic practice but she was still slagged off, particularly by those who favour leaving the EU. Brexiters were whining that she didn't report it because the BBC is pro-remain and if people knew the Queen supported Britain leaving the EU, that would tip the vote in favour of voting out.

For a pro-remain broadcaster, the BBC sure as hell gives Nigel Farage a lot of airplay... But I digress.

I trust every Brexiter who got a bit excited because the Queen might favour leaving the EU is a republican. After all, pesky "unelected" people seemed to be a cornerstone of every pro-leave argument and a post-Brexit republic would mean the unelected Queen would become a private citizen and vote like the rest of us can. Or she could run for office herself and her popularity and world view could be put to the test at the ballot box. And how about some House of Lords reform with an elected upper chamber while we're at it, eh? Wouldn't that be just lovely?

Of course the "unelected people in Brussels" argument is bunkum because we do vote for MEPs. But we are now in a post-fact, post-expert idiocracy.

And it is a post-responsibility idiocracy if low voter turnout in Britain for European elections is any indication. God forbid anyone take an interest in voting for those who represent us in Brussels. As a result, we ended up with gravy-train-riding UKIP MEPs not turning up for important votes despite these self-serving hypocrites telling us at every opportunity that they were our "eyes and ears in Brussels". It would seem our eyes and ears did not very often extend to being bums on seats.

In the meantime, MEPs from other parties did plenty of good work that was seldom reported in the British press and engagement with constituents by MEPs was poor. If the hounds of Article 50 are released, we won't get a chance to forge closer links with our MEPs or demand better media coverage of their work, or, I dunno, take some bloody responsibility and seek out information on what our MEPs are doing - it's actually not that hard to find if you have an internet connection and a functioning brain stem.

But back to the Queen...

If you're a monarchist Brexiter, is one of your pro-monarchy arguments that the Queen is above politics? If so, you might want to really think hard before getting too excited about a Brexit-loving monarch on the throne. If she did express a view on the referendum, she is clearly not apolitical so that's that pro-monarchy argument shot to pieces. If Laura Kuenssberg had a second source, it would certainly be in the public interest to report it.

Kuenssberg's source claimed the Queen said: "I don't see why we can't just get out. What's the problem?". Good Lord. The problem is that this is exactly the kind of ignorant, simplistic statement that helped a bullshit-ridden, cynical leave campaign win against a complacent remain campaign in the first place. If the Queen really said such a stupid thing, she is like millions of other people in this country who seem to think leaving the EU will be easy-peasy and that trade deals can be easily done over a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge.

Whatever the hell Theresa May meant by a "red, white and blue Brexit", one thing is clear. We are gearing up for another year of extreme levels of stupidity, possibly starting at Buckingham Palace. The other certainty is that Laura Kuenssberg will continue to be a responsible journalist but that won't stop elements of the left and the right criticising her without ever bothering to do a proper content analysis of her work.

2017: my expectations are very low indeed.





Photography by Maxwell Hamilton/Flickr

An open letter to left-leaning Brexiters

Dear left-leaning Brexiters,

I understand why right-leaning Brexiters voted to leave the EU in May, even if I fundamentally disagree with them. But this letter is not for them. This letter is for the left-of-centre people - in many cases, the hardcore, far-left-let's-destroy-capitalism people - who voted to leave the EU.

What the everloving fuck were you hoping to achieve? What the everloving fuck did you think would happen if the majority actually did vote to leave the EU? Did you really think leaving the EU would amount to some sort of socialist victory? Why could you not see that it was a choice between two forms of capitalism? Are you really so dim as to believe that leaving the EU was going to herald some sort of workers' revolution?

"But this means we're free from TTIP!", I hear you whine.

TTIP has been killed, largely by France. France has been against TTIP from the get-go and in August, President Hollande stalled negotiations again. Couple this with growing opposition in Germany and Angela Merkel desperate to retain power, and there you have it - the two big hitters of the EU in no position to proceed.

But it isn't just French obstruction or a strong German protest movement that is halting TTIP. Labour and Green MEPs were doing excellent behind-the-scenes work to negotiate terms, going through TTIP with a fine toothed comb. Unfortunately, "behind-the-scenes" are the operative words here - nobody bothered to find out about what our MEPs were doing for us. And soon we will have no MEPs, no power of veto in Brussels, and we will be wide open to a US-UK trade deal, regardless of who wins the US election. If anyone thinks that will be a win for Britain, they're deluded.

"But I wanted to kick Cameron out!", I hear you moan.

Yeah, about that. How is that working out for you, dear lefties? When Cameron quit, the glee was palpable on the left, even though at the time, it seemed to herald an inevitable Boris Johnson move to 10 Downing Street. When that fell through, and Andrea Leadsom revealed herself to be awful and inept all at once, Theresa May became prime minister by default. And she is embracing hard Brexit and pandering to the hard right Brexiters like a long lost lover. So much for the safe pair of hands. It is more like a stampeding pair of jackboots at the moment.

And if you are Lexiter who claims to care about the NHS or scientific research or access to the latest medicines, please hang your head in shame. You are part of the problem, contributing to a vote that will probably end freedom of movement and further compound NHS staffing woes, could cost us our European Health Insurance Card for medical treatment in the EU, the risk of lost research funding as part of the EU, and missing out on being part of clinical trials as part of the harmonised approach to medicines regulation. And you have pretty well lost the right to berate Jeremy Hunt about his ridiculous plan to grow more British doctors, despite making the medical profession less attractive than it has ever been to bright students.

Feel free to wave placards about hospital closures and cuts if you like, it's allegedly a free country, but do know that your vote to leave the EU will make whatever we have left of our health system even more precarious. You are just as absurd as anyone who voted to leave the EU because they genuinely believed Boris' bus of bullshit with the stupid "£350 million for the NHS" claim.

Sorry, Lexiters, but you have dropped a bollock. You have helped the hard right usher in a new era of awful policy and there are plenty of aspects of the Theresa May-led hard Brexit that are appealing to a wide number of people. On top of this, we're left with a hapless opposition with which the hard left is enamoured, even though peak Corbyn has been reached with a stacked and skewed inflated membership. Sorry, but this does not actually reflect what the wider electorate is thinking or wants for Britain. Theresa May is currently on a mission to out-UKIP UKIP and it is working. She is being very careful to find just the right level of UKIP-ness for the electorate to tolerate to keep the Tories in power for a very long time.

For those who voted Brexit because they wanted a hard Brexit with no access to the common market and no freedom of movement, congratulations on getting what you signed up for on 23 June. For everyone else who voted out with a completely different idea of what Brexit might look like, you've made your bed and now we all must lie in it. And for those who voted Brexit because they genuinely thought it would result in some sort of socialist revolution, you are genuinely dangerous and stupid.

If I have offended anyone, I really don't care.

Yours sincerely,

Georgia Lewis, militant remain voter







Photography by threefishsleeping/Flickr

Waking up to Brexit Britain...

It was like that awkward moment when you wake up and realise you've shagged the office creep. You remember him at the party, saying things you wanted to hear, and you believed them, whether they were true or not. And then the alarm goes off on a new day, you look across the bed and there he is, in your bed, and you can't quite believe that you went there.

He may be the owner of a radioactively blonde barnet and a drooling leer. Or, possibly, he reeks of beer and fags and is gazing at you with a rictus grin. Either way, he is now refusing to leave and you start to worry that he may take up permanent residence at your flat.

This is how it felt to wake up to a Vote Leave win in the referendum.

And the pound crashed, and the FTSE crashed, wobbled back up again like a drunk kitten and flatlined, exactly as the experts predicted. They were the experts people ignored in favour of wanting a "victory for commonsense". Whatever the hell that means today.

Then Nigel Farage, fresh from despicably trying to claim victim status after Jo Cox was murdered, showed all the sensitivity of a hessian condom, by gloating that "we won it without a single bullet being fired". And then he shut the gate after the horse had bolted by helpfully telling us the pledge that a vote to leave would mean £350m a week for the NHS was "a mistake". Never mind that a cornerstone of the catastrophically dishonest leave campaign was that a Brexit would somehow mean a massive infusion of funds for healthcare.

Another cornerstone of the leave campaign was that "taking back control" of our borders and deciding who we let into the UK would relieve pressures on public services. Plenty of people called bullshit on this before the referendum - we will have to agree to freedom of movement to trade with the EU, same as Norway and Switzerland, and the Vienna Convention means there won't be an instant exodus of EU citizens - but this was ignored by every voter who cited immigration as their main concern.

Daniel Hannan, a Tory Eurosceptic MEP, has essentially told the "piss off, we're full" brigade to prepare to be disappointed. "All we're asking for is some control over roughly who comes in," he said this morning, watering down the tough border control rhetoric of the last few weeks.

In short, the British public has been sold a massive lemon with the leave campaign. The desire to ignore experts has been especially depressing. It is typical of an increasing race-to-the-bottom mentality that seems to be growing like a pitiful fungus. There is a disdain for the educated, as if getting an education and developing experience and expertise in a field is something on which to look down. Would these same anti-experts submit to a tailor for major surgery? After all, it's just a bit of cutting and stitching. Who needs years of medical training for that?

Educated people are being criticised for voting remain on the basis of analysing evidence and reading widely and considering a range of views. This apparently amounts to hatred of the working class. For some, voting with your heart rather than your head was a better methodology for the biggest political decision of our lifetimes.

Nigel Farage was arrogant enough to say that GDP doesn't matter if quality of life improves, except that the two concepts are connected. But nobody really challenged him on that or any of the nonsense he spouted during what was an appalling, unedifying campaign.

Areas of low immigration and high unemployment voted heavily to leave. The leave campaign was obsessed with the job-stealing ways of Polish car washers, as if they were all desperate to wash cars for a living, or somehow felt that in a free market economy, they would be unable to start their own car-washing business in competition. Never mind that there are so many educated EU citizens making amazing contributions to the country or that educated Brits work in professional jobs across Europe. Schrodinger's Immigrant was stealing all our jobs while claiming jobseekers' allowance.

Of course, there is also an element of jealousy, of tall poppy syndrome in regard to British people working in the EU. These are, by and large, the British people who have taken the time to learn other languages and, as a result, enjoy incredible professional opportunities. Like Australians, British people are often shamefully monolingual. But resenting those who have taken their language skills to Europe is simply pathetic.

And then there are the cries of "Sore loser!". With all due respect, grow up. This is not some kids' football game where a wailing six-year-old refuses to accept the offside rule. This is extremely bloody serious and the implications deserve serious discussion and analysis. If we are to come out of this unnecessarily divisive period of British political history equipped with the information and a credible plan to minimise the inevitable hit the economy will take, we need to break it down, to work out how we can find a way to move forward and prosper.

How will we make up the shortfall from losing EU funding and a possibly reduced tax and consumer-spending base? There will be job losses? Do we have a plan to create more jobs? Will the welfare state be an effective safety net in the meantime? What will the role of the public and private sectors be in this vague new world in which we now live? What will our trade relationship with the EU look like? These are all serious economic questions that need to be discussed as a matter of urgency and constructive solutions need to be found.

We also need to discuss racism. Not every Brexiter is a racist. There are people I am proud to call friends and family who voted out. But it is naive to say that racism didn't motivate some voters. We need to be prepared to look into that grim underbelly of British society and deal with the bile and hatred before it eats society alive.

All this because David Cameron was scared of losing voters to UKIP in the last general election.

The campaign turned into Boris Johnson's personal crusade to become Prime Minister. His speeches, while generally bollocks if anyone bothered to analyse them, were carefully designed to set him up as looking more statesmanlike. He made promises he had no business making about what post-Brexit Britain will look like. Right now, he is not the party leader, he is merely the Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Bad luck if any of his constituents want a surgery any time soon. Pish tosh! He is way too busy for such trifles of democracy!

I genuinely thought I'd wake up this morning with a sense of relief, with the realisation that the country didn't metaphorically shag the office creep. I was hoping we would have thought better of being seduced by one-liners and lame Facebook memes and outright lies about everything from Turkey to how laws are made, and decided to give the creep the number of a taxi company instead.

Thanks, Dave. You bet the house on this referendum and the whole debacle has been a lesson in unintended consequences that defies parody. Next time you want to pander to UKIP, meet Nigel down the pub, buy him a few pints and give him a light. After all, you have plenty in common. You are both the establishment that in no way has been defeated.







Photo by Davide D'Amico

It's EU Referendum campaign season! *opens wine*

The date is set! June 23! David Cameron had no choice but to fulfil his election promise of an in-out EU referendum. I'm voting to stay in. There! I said it! It's liberating to come out!

Yes! Dave has done a deal in Brussels! Never mind that everyone there wanted to discuss bigger issues, such as the migrant situation, rather than arguing over Britain's welfare provisions. Never mind that Dave has basically made a mountain out of a mere £30 million molehill of benefits for foreigners. It's all about looking like he is doing something that will appeal to the Daily Mail readers. My response to the deal is "meh". My views on the EU remain the same as they were before he went to Brussels, trying not to look like a virgin at an orgy.

Jeremy Corbyn's column on the referendum in the Guardian yesterday was largely sensible but it is the soundbites that ended up on the news that people will notice and these made him sound ungracious and not entirely convinced that we should stay in the EU. Corbyn's Euroscepticism is not exactly a state secret and this is already undermining his credibility in the campaign.

Labour MP for Exeter, Ben Bradshaw, however, did an excellent job on Sky News yesterday responding to Cameron's deal. It was pitch perfect, just the right mix of class and criticism, while still putting forward a clear and positive case for staying in the EU. He came across like a real leader.

The irony of the Vote Leave campaigners accusing anyone of scaremongering is laughable, given that Nigel Farage's entire schtick is based on fear of anything a bit different and a pathetic yearning for good old days that weren't actually that good at all. That'd be Nigel Farage who could actually do some good for Britain by bothering to turn up to debate on behalf of us all and attend votes once in a while as an MEP instead of just making his vague and pointless claim that he is our eyes and ears in Brussels. He is as much on the gravy train as any Eurocrat.

The Vote Leave campaign also has the dubious presence of Michael Gove, who was an utterly appalling Education Secretary. He wrote a 1,500-word diatribe about why he wants to leave the EU, which starts with five excruciating paragraphs about how his standpoint "pains" him, how he hates ever so much to disagree with David Cameron and is now probably worried about awkward dinner parties in years to come.

George Galloway is an awful pig of a man and a rape apologist so he's clearly a boon to the Vote Leave campaign.

Ian Duncan Smith, meanwhile, has imposed awful policy on the disabled people of Britain that is as cruel as it is economically illiterate, so it makes perfect sense that he wet his whistle by claiming we're more vulnerable to terrorism if we stay in the EU. Yeah. Because Daesh cares really deeply about EU membership when choosing its targets. And, in any case, it's not as if this government is in any rush to open the borders to refugees in any great numbers - and that is the group to which IDS was referring in his tantrum on the BBC today. Another case of the Tories trying to out-UKIP UKIP for political gain.

And speaking of political gain, Boris Johnson has only formulated his position on the EU based on what he thinks is best for Boris Johnson. If you have seriously formed your view based on what Boris Johnson says he will do, you are, with all due respect, a fucking idiot. Boris is egomaniacal enough to believe his position will have real sway with the electorate and he has taken an educated gamble by backing Vote Leave.

If Britain votes to leave the EU, that is the end of David Cameron's political career and Boris can stick his irritating head over the parapet as a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership. This is obviously his big dream here. And if we vote to stay, Boris can still claim to speak for large, Eurosceptical swathes of the electorate and he will get a nice job in the cabinet based on the notion that he will win UKIP voters back to the Tories.

Nothing Boris has done today has anything to do with what is good for the country or for wider notions of democracy. Nothing.

And then there are the Eurosceptical voices from the left. One of the main objections to staying in the EU is opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If passed in its current form, it is a free trade agreement that will open up UK government contracts to the US, not just the UK and EU, as is the case at the moment.

But to vote to leave the EU based on TTIP is to then trust the Conservative government to not just go ahead and sign their own free trade deal with the US, with even less safeguards than TTIP and negotiated without the might of other European nations behind us. Indeed, opposition to TTIP is growing across Europe, with Germany being a strong case in point. France, meanwhile, is making it very clear that they will not support the dispute resolution mechanisms of TTIP as things stand right now.

If TTIP loses the support of the two big economies Germany and France, the whole deal is on very shaky ground.

Like it or not, we have a Conservative government in place here until 2020. Do you seriously think a post-Brexit Conservative government will just forget the whole idea of a free trade agreement with the US or negotiate a deal that is in the interests of the people of Britain? After all, one of the big alleged selling points of Brexit is that the UK will be able to make free trade agreements with gay abandon. Nigel Farage loves to bang on about this with tedious frequency. (Never mind that we already trade with the rest of the world and our pandering to China and Saudi Arabia is truly embarrassing. That is another rant for another time...).

Similarly, to vote for Brexit because you hate David Cameron is pathetic, small-minded and intellectually bankrupt. I am no fan of David Cameron but I am not basing my EU referendum vote on this any more than I'd base my vote on what Boris Johnson says. As I just said, we have a Conservative government in place here until 2020. Yes, sure, Cameron will go if we leave the EU but there won't be a change in government. It'll be Prime Minister Johnson, May or Osborne. Yeah, voting to leave the EU really showed those Tories!

And then there is the wild card of Scotland. If the SNP can convince its voters to stay in, that is one huge voting bloc right there. Regardless of what Nicola Sturgeon's motives might be for staying in the EU, it was pretty clear during the Scottish independence referendum that many pro-independence voters were also convinced that an independent Scotland would easily waltz into the EU, a process that can take years. The SNP could skewer the Vote Leave campaign as effectively as it skewered Scottish Labour in last year's general election.

Honestly, on one hand, I say roll on, June 23, because Peak Idiocy cannot be too far away with this campaign. On the other hand, I say it's not enough time for people to get to grips with the issues surrounding such a huge decision.

Personally, I believe we are better off having a seat at the top table of such a huge trading bloc. Even if we leave, decisions will be made without us that will still affect us because we are part of the world. We can't just stop the world and get off, as much as tiny-minded isolationists want for that to happen. We are part of Europe and part of the world.

I believe we get more out of the EU than we put in. I know it can be cumbersome and overly bureaucratic but it needs to be reformed with the UK involved rather than watching from across the channel. Freedom of movement works both ways, which UKIP fans seem to forget. The implications for British expats across Europe will be enormous, the irony of UKIP having branches in Spain notwithstanding. There are medical research projects that UK universities will no longer be a part of, there will be EU funding for roads, for the arts, for infrastructure and so on that will be no more.

I do not want to see Britain become an insular little island, closed off to so many opportunities that we currently enjoy as part of the EU. It is because I love both Britain and Europe that I will vote to stay.






Photo by George Hodan

Could the election ever have been all about the NHS, stupid?

"It's the economy, stupid!" is a frequent, if cliched, explanation for why elections are won. It's so obvious. The winning party was either strong on economic policy or, as is more likely in the case of this month's UK General Election, was strong on giving a good impersonation of being strong on the economy.

If the only payrise you've received of late is down to tax cuts, if you're not struggling on a zero hours contract, if you have never seen inside a food bank, if you really don't know what the difference is between the debt and the deficit and don't particularly care to find out, if you're genuinely happy with supermarket prices and the economy's current rate of growth, then yes, it is pretty obvious why the Conservative Party came out as looking like they might be strong on the economy. Whatever. It doesn't matter what your politics are, you can probably find figures to support your argument or you might genuinely believe George Osborne is doing a sterling job as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For the beleaguered Labour Party, the polls (Ha! Remember those wacky polls before the election?), suggested the public thought Team Red rather than Team Blue was stronger and more trustworthy on the NHS. But this didn't translate into nearly enough votes for Labour to come close to a majority. The wheels fell off for Labour on the NHS long before Ed Miliband unveiled his stone tablet inscribed with the meaningless platitude of "An NHS with time to care".

While there certainly are people in Britain who would support the NHS moving towards a user-pays system and an increased take-up of private health insurance, the overwhelming feeling I get is that "free at the point of use" remains an important pillar of the NHS for many people from across the political spectrum. People understand that we pay for the NHS via our taxes and people expect in return to not receive a bill or have to file for bankruptcy as a result of receiving NHS treatment.

I remember debating UKIP's NHS policy with a Kipper on Twitter who was desperate to reassure me that UKIP is committed the NHS remaining free at the point of use (except immigrants like me, who have not yet lived here for five years, would have to take out private health insurance...). I found that UKIP, Tory, LibDem and Labour supporters all push the "free at the point of use" line but few seem too concerned with whether NHS services are publicly or privately provided.

And so the missed opportunities for Labour to show true strength on the NHS began.

Why didn't Labour promise to look into the billions of pounds the NHS internal market costs taxpayers in administration costs alone?

When we have situations across the country such as Virgin Care running essential urgent care services at Croydon University Hospital so poorly that quality standards are simply not being met, G4S being allowed anywhere near a hospital, Serco misuing public funds in relation to NHS contracts, we have a problem. The problem is compounded by private companies being exempt from FOI laws?

At the very least, Labour could have pledged to overturn the FOI exemption for private companies in relation to NHS contracts. Why did this not happen?

A promise to cap profits of private providers in the NHS did not resonate with voters.

The National Health Action Party, the Greens and UKIP all had policies on rolling back expensive PFI contracts, which are costing us billions in repayments, meaning we frequently get one hospital for the price of nine. Why was Labour afraid of a mea culpa on PFI? PFI may have been started by the Conservatives but it went nuclear under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. A humble admission that this was a massively expensive SNAFU and a pledge to do something about it could have been a vote-winner.

The cost of the NHS internal market and PFI contracts represent cost pressures on the NHS that make the Daily Mail's constant wail of "health tourism" pale into insignificance. They would be pledges that would not fit nicely on a ridiculous stone or have the snappy insta-appeal of the mansion tax, even though that would not come close to helping plug the NHS funding gap.

Why couldn't the Labour Party found a way to get the message out there that internal market costs and PFI are crippling the NHS financially way more than immigrants ever will?

Instead, we have much NHS fun and games already with the all-new, all-singing, all-dancing Conservative majority government. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is now bashing nurses over anti-social hours pay in his quest to make what is already a 24-hour service an unachievable 24-hour service. There are unrealistic promises of hordes of new GPs despite there not being enough GPs in training to achieve this, and despite Britain struggling to attract foreign GPs to make up the shortfall. It all smacks of setting the system up for inevitable failure, ably assisted by a compliant NHS-bashing media, thus whetting the public appetite for selling off more services.

Whether Labour, under the election manifesto's NHS promises, would have done any better is a moot point. Whether the new Labour leader will be able to offer a genuine, cost-effective, patient outcomes-focused alternative remains to be seen. All I will say is that if one of the "modernisers" wins the leadership contest (I'm looking at you, Liz Kendall...), I predict more of the same for years to come.

OK, so what has gone on with the UK general election?

The polls predicted a close election. Britain was braced for a hung parliament and the possibility of voting again to break the deadlock. But the deadlock never happened and the Conservative Party won a majority. There will be no deals with the Liberal Democrats. With only eight LibDem MPs left in the House of Commons, they'll be able to hold their meetings in a booth at Pizza Hut. UKIP only won one seat. Labour members are in shock. And the SNP took almost every constituency in Scotland, which was about the only thing anyone predicted.

So why did vast swathes of Britain turn blue? I suspect UKIP helped the Conservatives enormously. It does not take a great leap of imagination to picture right-leaning, undecided voters across the country who were contemplating voting UKIP thinking better of it in the privacy of the ballot box. The Conservatives may have seemed a safer choice than a largely untested, gaffe-prone party that cannot quite shake its reputation for racism or sexism or being stuck in the 1950s or blaming floods on gay people getting married.

It is ironic that UKIP, the party that claims to be anti-establishment, helped to ensure the establishment retained power. Then again, this is the same party that all at once says it is in favour of free speech, constantly whines about "BBC lefty bias, appears on the BBC with alarming regularity, and called the police after Camilla Long had the temerity to make a joke about Nigel Farage on Have I Got News For You. We cannot expect any consistency from UKIP, the party that once had uniforms for taxi drivers as a policy despite claiming to be the party of minimal government interference.

The UKIP factor is more of a worry for the Labour party. In many seats, UKIP polled strongly against Labour candidates, eating into their majorities. This will mean some serious soul-searching for Labour. Ed Miliband attempted tough talk on immigration. Indeed, his bizarre stone monument named "Controlled immigration" as a promise.

For Labour, myriad questions have emerged. Will Labour need to try and out-UKIP UKIP to win back traditional working class Labour voters? Is it fair to tar all working class Labour voters as susceptible to UKIP policy? Should Labour instead try to educate voters in order to counteract UKIP's fear-mongering about immigrants? Or will Labour instead assume there will always be an element of the working class who will vote for them no matter what and try instead to appeal more to their liberal middle class supporters? Was Labour not radical enough on the NHS? Can Labour win over Green and Liberal Democrat voters in 2020 and would that be enough to dredge up a majority in five years' time? And what about being annihilated in Scotland?

Which brings us to the SNP. The Tories don't need the SNP to form a government, Labour is in no position to ask the SNP to help them take charge. The SNP rode high on a wave of Scottish nationalism but in England, English nationalism and a fear of being run by the SNP in a coalition, did not help Labour's cause. In the end, it didn't matter how many times Ed Miliband said there wouldn't be a Labour-SNP coalition. People were not convinced. As a result the SNP goal of ridding the UK of the Tories failed despite winning 56 seats.

Of course, there was also the rank hypocrisy of politicians who not so long ago were begging Scotland to stay in the union now encouraging everyone outside of Scotland to panic-vote a possible coalition away, neutering the influence of the very people they were courting during last year's referendum.

Given the SNP campaign was a strongly anti-austerity, let's-get-rid-of-the-Tories campaign, we can only assume their MPs will vote against any planned Conservative cuts in the new parliament. But even if they vote as a bloc with Labour, the Green MP and the smattering of LibDems, the Conservatives won't have any trouble getting things passed through the House of Commons. Whether the House of Lords is compliant, however, is another matter. And the Conservatives could easily face divisions, especially on issues such as Europe, if rebel MPs refuse to vote with the whip. We shall see...

And then there was the LibDems' obliteration across the whole country. London is left with just one LibDem, the cadaverously insincere Tom Brake, who has managed to convince people he is keeping the local hospital open on the strength of an e-petition so out of date it is addressed to the wrong body.

But were the LibDems punished for becoming yellow Tories? Given the number of yellow seats that turned blue, possibly not. Either there was a curiously apathetic attitude in polling booths of "Oh well, we may as well just vote Conservative, same difference" going on or perhaps there are more natural conservatives among us than we realised. With seats such as Twickenham, Sutton & Cheam and Kingston & Surbiton going from LibDem to Tory, were the more affluent and elderly voters, those more likely to vote and vote blue, coming out in force in these areas?

Oh well, maybe it is time for some good old electoral reform, eh? Remember way back in 2011 when we had the AV referendum? AV? Alternative vote? Anyone? Given that about three people turned out to vote, nobody seemed to understand what AV was, and the asinine Louise Mensch drearily sneered from the US that AV was bad because Australia and Papua New Guinea have it, it came as no surprise when the referendum failed. Now, all of a sudden, people who couldn't give a damn about electoral reform in 2011 are suddenly crying out for proportional representation instead of first-past-the-post.

In particular, losing parties are crying out for a spot of proportional representation - the Liberal Democrats and UKIP would have both done a whole lot better under that system. And maybe it isn't a fair reflection of the national mood if UKIP only gets one seat despite getting more than four million votes across the country. They are four million people the major parties will try to win over in 2020 if they are serious about governing with a comfortable majority.

But ultimately, UKIP may not matter at all in the long run. The purple pound-sign warriors can talk up their success-despite-only-having-one-seat all they like tonight. David Cameron has promised an in-out referendum on Europe in 2017. If he keeps his promise, UKIP will slink further into irrelevancy regardless of the result.

If the UK votes to leave the EU, that sucks the life out of pretty much every UKIP policy so they'd be instantly beside the point. If the UK votes to stay in the EU, the people will have spoken out against UKIP's obsession, life will go on and the UKIP MEPs will continue to be ineffective in Brussels at everything except riding the gravy train.

And as the night falls on the first day of the Conservative majority government, there will be a lot of pollsters, as well as Labour supporters, NHS campaigners, LibDems and people who'd sooner hammer rusty nails into their eardrums than vote Tory who are wondering what the hell to do now. Next up, we will have the inevitably unedifying spectacle of parties choosing new leaders as they lick their wounds. You might not like the result of this election but, chances are, you cannot look away. If you want change, however, you will have to do stuff as well as look, tweet and bleat.

20 ways to not be a dick in 2015

Happy new year! Here are a few tips on how to not be a dick in 2015. You're welcome.

1. Do not mistake UKIP for the party of free speech. They will only publicly defend your right to free speech if you agree with them or say something racist, sexist or homophobic because that means you have the "courage" to say what we are all really thinking. Apparently. This is also a party that is desperate for its members to stay off social media lest someone says something stupid.

2. On the same token, UKIP members can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Indeed, anyone can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Always remember that you have the freedom to ignore anything someone says that you find stupid. If you are seeking to silence someone, ask yourself whether this is because you feel threatened by what they are saying.

3. If you succeed in getting something banned that you don't like, do not act all surprised if something you do like also gets banned.

4. If you walk down the street with your face in your phone, do not get all indignant if you walk into someone. It is not their fault.

5. Before you blame immigrants for any problems with the NHS, bear in mind that the real cost pressures are coming from rancid PFI deals and the astronomical costs of administering the tender process for contracts.

6. If you whine about "BBC lefty bias", you will sound like a weapons grade bellend.

7. Vaccinate your kids.

8. Do not interrogate women without children about why they don't have children or when they might have children. It is none of your business.

9. If you are an MP, consider not giving yourself another massive pay rise this year. You also might like to consider paying for all manner of stuff yourself. Such as meals. And home maintenance.

10. Londoners! Unless it is the last tube of the night, there is no need to run for it or barge open the doors with an enormous bag of shopping just as they are beeping closed. There will be another train.

11. Refrain from eating oranges or mandarins on public transport. It's gross.

12. I am sure your children are adorable. They will be even more adorable if they do not ride scooters in supermarkets with narrow aisles and will be more likely to celebrate another birthday if they don't ride said scooters at speed on busy high streets. This and point number seven comprise the full extent of my parenting advice.

13. If you live somewhere like Dubai, a pet husky is a stupid idea.

14. The Duchess of Cambridge is not amazing. If you think she is amazing, you are too easily amazed.

15. Do not get all your news from one source. This will turn you into a moronic caricature.

16. I know it's an embarrassment of embarrassments rather than an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the talent of many MPs or potential MPs in Britain but it is still smart to vote. You never know. Your vote may even make a difference, especially if your MP has a tiny majority.

17. Don't whine about the death of the high street if you never actually use the shops on the high street.

18. Detoxing is a myth. We detox every day by doing a poo. But there is no money to be made in telling people this. Eat well, everything in moderation, et cetera et cetera. Boring but effective.

19. Similarly, if you don't eat sugar/gluten/meat/whatever food is declared lethal this week, that is your choice. But don't bore me with your sanctimony. I will continue to eat all of the above in varying quantities.

20. If another person's sex life is consensual, mind your own business. They probably don't want you to join in.

UKIP and the man behind the green door: The sequel

Last week, I wrote about the man down the road from my house. The man who has a UKIP poster in his window. About how I wondered who might live in that house. And then I wondered no more when I found him collapsed in his doorway, a 91-year-old man who immigrated to the UK from Poland after WWII. I didn't demand to know why he had a UKIP poster. I called an ambulance while two visiting builders helped him to the sofa. He is still in hospital - the bump on the head was as serious as it looked and he was rattling with multiple medications for multiple conditions. It is a sad situation but he is in good hands at St Helier Hospital.

I was forced to confront my own prejudices and assumptions. I admit I was fully expecting a middle-aged man, born in the UK, to be living there. I could not have been more wrong and I acknowledged that. The man's need for medical care was far greater than my need to ask why he plans to vote UKIP next May. There is nothing to be gained by me picking an argument with a vulnerable widower.

Yet still assorted UKIP supporters appeared in my Twitter feed and called me an ageist lefty bigot. They are entitled to form that view of me. What was ironic was a few of them then proceeded to make assumptions about me - they all assumed I get all my news from the Guardian. I do not. And they all assumed I was a Labour party supporter. I am not. I seriously have no idea where my cross will go at next year's election. One genius decided to include Ed Miliband and Ed Balls in the tweets he sent at me.

But what was interesting about the Twitter conversations was the bizarre way UKIP supporters try to defend UKIP's NHS policy.

They were all keen to tell me that UKIP is all about keeping the NHS free at point of use. This would be fine if one of UKIP's policies wasn't compulsory, government-approved private health insurance for all immigrants for the first five years of their time in the UK. Only once an immigrant has paid both tax and private health insurance for five years would they then have the same standing in the NHS as a British-born person who has never had a job or a British-born convicted criminal, neither of whom are under any obligation to contribute to the system for any period of time.

There was no real answer from anyone from UKIP on this one. And as soon as I point out that scapegoating immigrants won't save the NHS when the system is buckling under the pressures of PFI loans and the outrageous cost of the tender process within the NHS - estimates vary between £3b and £10b per year but Jeremy Hunt isn't going to give us exact figures - then they disappear from the conversation. UKIP has no policies on reforming the marketised NHS and its policy on buying back PFI loans is entirely uncosted.

And while every political party right now will tell you they want to keep the NHS free at the point of use, it is important to then discuss whether the services will be provided publicly, by the private sector or as a mixture of the two, and what is the most responsible path to take. "We want to keep the NHS free at the point of use" is a meaningless statement without this additional debate. It's the kind of glib statement I got from a Lib Dem today but that does not surprise me in the least. It is the useless party of glibness and faded principles and it is populated by MPs as self-serving as any other party.

But what is even more curious about discussing the NHS with UKIP supporters is how they are quick to acknowledge the NHS policy is flawed. I even had one agree with me that their NHS policy is full of holes. And another one was moved to blog about my blog post last week and admitted that "UKIP doesn't have a particularly strong policy on the NHS, other than to keep it free at point of use, whatever that takes." See the three paragraphs above as to why that is a pretty pitiful excuse for healthcare policy and one that does not move me to vote UKIP.

And curiouser and curiouser, I've never had a UKIP supporter quote their Dear Leader, Nigel Farage, when it comes to the NHS. This is hardly surprising. Farage did not do a damn thing when his deputy, Paul Nuttall, congratulating the current government for bringing a "whiff of privatisation" to the NHS and has been caught on camera supporting an insurance-based system. Are his supporters embarrassed by him or do they know they are not going to convince anyone by quoting their leader?

We should not be surprised by any of this. In the past four years, there have been so many changes to their NHS policy, it is hard to keep up. And some of their policies, such as the duty on all NHS staff to report low standards of care and the requirement for foreign health service professionals to speak an acceptable standard of English, are already in place. But they are policies that sound good to people who don't know any better and aren't about to do any research.

It is a party of cheap populism, of blowing with the wind, of making it up as they go along depending on what they think might garner support and make headlines. It has nothing to do with what is good for the country and its people. UKIP is a party that once had compulsory uniforms for taxi drivers as a policy on its website. People rightly mocked that one. It vanished. If anything that is currently on the UKIP website is mocked too loudly, that will probably vanish from cyberspace too.

The funny thing is I have met UKIP supporters in person and they were pleasant, friendly people. I met four last Friday night at a screening of Sell-Off, a film about the threats to the NHS such as PFI, vested interests, TTIP and the cost of the tender process. They were stunned into silence and I can only hope they came away from the screening knowing that immigrants are not the problem here. But whether UKIP policy will reflect that is another matter entirely.

UKIP and the man behind the green door

It is a house I walk past every time I walk to the tube station. Like my own house, it's a 1930s semi with bay windows at the front. Unlike my house, it still has the lovely original front door. And unlike my house, there is a poster stuck to the front window telling people not to deliver leaflets from any other political party because the occupant is voting UKIP.

I'd often wonder as I walked past who might live there. If I ever spotted the occupant in the front garden, would I have the nerve to ask them about the poster, to tell me what particular policies of UKIP they like so much? Would they eloquently defend UKIP? Would they end up telling me I'm OK, that I'm one of the immigrants "we like", which is always code for "white, native English speaker, not wearing a hijab"?

Today I got to find out who lives at the house with the cute green door. It was a humbling lesson.

I was doing my usual walk to the tube station, my attempt to keep vaguely fit and save Oyster card credit by foregoing a five-minute bus ride for a 15-minute walk, when I noticed the green door was open. I am a chronic sticky-beak so I took a peek. There were two builders standing in the doorway. Lying on the floor was an elderly man. He was pale, he was incoherent, he seemed agitated, he didn't appear to have all his clothes on even though it was a chilly morning.

The old man was clearly in trouble and the builders were desperately trying to get him on his feet. I asked if everything was OK. They told me they'd come over to remove his old conservatory, he'd struggled to answer the door and now he was on the ground. There was a nasty bruise on his forehead caked with dried blood.

I called the ambulance while the builders slowly got him on his feet, carried him to the sofa and covered him with a blanket, an attempt to restore some of the man's dignity. As I explained the situation to 999, I saw the house was a mess, it smelled of urine, soiled underwear was discarded on the kitchen floor, the peeling living room wallpaper was smeared with a large streak of dried blood, possibly from when he hit his head.

The paramedics arrived quickly and a neighbour who regularly checks on him turned up. More was revealed about the old man's life. The lovely neighbour said he is still quite active. The food in the fridge was still in date. His wife died last year at the age of 96. He is 91. There was a note from the council from a social services visitor who tried to see him last week because she was concerned about his welfare but there was no answer at the door. His family had visited him over the weekend. I wondered to myself why they didn't try and tidy up, maybe run a Hoover over the place or wipe down a few surfaces. Just as I'd made assumptions about the identity of the UKIP voter, I found myself judging people I'd never met.

By this time, there were four paramedics, two builders, the neighbour, the elderly man and myself at the house. We all tried to talk him into going to hospital to get the bump on the head checked out. He was not keen on the idea but in the end, he agreed to it. The paramedics did a spectacular job - caring, professional, patient - exactly the kind of people you'd want to treat you or your own elderly relatives.

And so, apart from popping into the council building before I got on the tube to update the social services department on the situation, my work was done. I'd like to think that anyone would have called the ambulance if they were confronted with the situation of an old man slumped in his own doorway. Please tell me society has not crumbled to such a point that walking on by would be the norm.

And my terrible curiosity about the identity of the UKIP voter was extinguished. The 91-year-old man came to the UK from Poland after WWII. Obviously, I did not choose that vulnerable, fragile moment in his life to ask him why he loves UKIP so much he put a poster in the front window.

I could have pointed out to him that if he arrived in the UK from Poland under a UKIP government, he would be forced to take out private health insurance and not be entitled to NHS care until he'd paid National Insurance for five years. I could have pointed out that there is nothing in UKIP's NHS policy that would prevent further marketisation of NHS services, which may one day result in us getting billed for ambulance journeys. Indeed, at St Helier Hospital, where he was taken, the non-emergency ambulances are already run by the stratospherically incompetent G4S and have caused a needless death.

But of course I did not do this. That would have been a dick move of gargantuan proportions. Instead, we should all be grateful we live in a country where he was treated promptly by highly trained, compassionate medical professionals and he did not receive a hideous bill for his trouble.

Unlike me, they had not spent any time wondering about the UKIP poster, or fighting an urge to knock on his door and ask him hard policy questions, or rolling their eyes at the thought of someone so keen on UKIP, they told the whole street about it via their front window.

They did none of these things. They simply treated him, without fear or favour, without making snap judgements about his politics, as they would any other patient who comes their way in the course of their working day. For that, I am humbled. We should all be vigilant in ensuring we can maintain this level of excellent care. I want to remain living in a country where medical treatment is not determined by wealth, immigration status or political persuasion.