The Wit and Wisdom of... The Venerable Bede

I warmly welcome the diligent zeal and sincerity with which you study the words of Holy Scripture, and your eager desire to know something of the doings and sayings of great men of the past, and of our own nation in particular. 

For if history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good: or if it records evil of wicked men, the good, religious listener or reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse, and to follow what he knows to be good, and pleasing to God.

Should the reader discover any inaccuracies in what I have written, I humbly beg that he will not impute them to me, because, as the laws of history require, I have laboured honestly to transmit whatever I could ascertain from common report for the instruction of posterity.

I earnestly request all who hear or read this history of our nation to ask God's mercy on my many failings of mind and body. And in return for the diligent toil that I have bestowed on the recording of memorable events in the various provinces and places of greater note, I beg that their inhabitants may grant me the favour of frequent mention in their devout prayers.

Bede, from the introduction to The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, c. 730 AD.

First page of The Ecclesiastical History

The Day After

In my defence, I always said I thought the Tories would do better than expected. But I am still in a state of shock. I honestly didn't expect the Tories to win outright, or the SNP to do as well, Labour to fall back, or the Liberal Democrats to suffer such a spectacular collapse.

This is a new phase for people of my age. The last Conservative only government was in 1997, on the edge of my childhood memories. And they'd lost their majority in December 1996. All my coherent memories are of either Labour in power, or the Coalition. I've never had any experience of direct Tory rule. And on a personal note, this is the first time I saw the party I voted for not win; my previous general election vote was for the Liberal Democrats, who ended up in power. As a person on the left, I am gutted.

But... moaning aside, I do have a few observations.

1) Didn't Cameron do well?- Credit where it is due. David Cameron seemed almost disinterested through the campaign. I thought that even if he did well yesterday, he would be hounded out by the Tories for failing to win again. But today he stood on the steps of No. 10, having seized a majority in the Commons. He took over 11 million votes, more than Tony Blair in 2001 and 2005, beating his own total from 2010 too. The last Prime Minister to increase their strength whilst in government was Mrs Thatcher in 1983. If nothing else, he will go down in the history books for one of the surprising election comebacks of all time.

2) But not that well...- Let's crunch some numbers. Cameron's vote rose by a pathetic 0.8%. His 36.9% support represents the second lowest vote share for a government since 1832, when the first stirrings of democracy began to creep into our system. The only person to do worse was Blair in 2005, and when that government, by then under Brown, faced the voters in 2010, it was badly battered. Treating a little over 1/3 of the vote as majority support is dangerous. Cameron would do well to remember that.

3) Labour; as bad as it looks?- Yes. For Labour, the result was a catastrophe. After five years of Opposition, it managed to do worse than in 2010, amidst the Great Recession. It trails the Tories by 99 seats. Obliterated in its Scottish heartlands, stagnant or in retreat in England. Big names gone. Ed Balls out in Morley and Outwood. Jim Murphy defeated in Scotland. Douglas Alexander out-voted by a 20 year old student, who in three weeks will sit her university finals. An entire generation of Labour politicians have been swept aside. What is left needs to think long and hard about where it goes from here.

But... Labour's share of the vote rose, by 1.4%. They closed the gap between them and the Tories, from 7.1% to 6.5%. If not for the rise of the SNP, Labour would have many more seats. Ed Miliband fought a bloody good campaign. Obviously, Labour are in deep trouble. But there is some light amidst the dark.

4) The Lib Dems- I really felt for Nick Clegg. The party has paid the price for putting country before party. And what a price. The party has been devastated. It lost 86% of its seats last night. Its vote share collapsed from 23% to 8%. Big names out of office, in seats held for decades. I was expecting the local factor to help keep some Lib Dem MPs in. But so total was the collapse that this did not save them. 

Is this the end for them? The Liberal Democrats can trace a history back to the 1600s. They've been down to single figures of MPs before. They'll be back. Good luck Tim Farron, I'm sure you'll make an excellent leader.

5) The force unleashed- What happened in Scotland last night was mind boggling. The SNP took 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland, and half the Scottish vote. They have set themselves up as the authentic voice of Scotland. They alone speak for the Scottish people.

Unless, of course, you come from the 50% of Scots who didn't back the SNP. You have the choice of a Tory, a Lib Dem, and one Labour MP. As Gerry Fitt, the lone pro-Nationalist MP in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, used to say, he spoke for half of Ulster, while ten Unionists spoke for the other half. Our electoral system tends to exaggerate large leads when turned into seats. The Lib Dems actually got substantially more votes than the SNP. But the difference in seats is 48 in favour of the SNP. Under a fairer voting system, the SNP would still be happy, but not quite as much.

The big flaw in the SNP's plans was always evident. They would get rid of the Tories, and make Labour more radical. Of course, this depended on a Labour government they helped to prevent, and a hung parliament that never materialsed. Now what? Will the Scottish electorate be satisfied by very radical complaining?

The SNP's success is down to many reasons. But a big one is because, after the independence referendum last year, they successfully managed to equate 'Scottishness' with the SNP. Minor details like facts just bounce off the SNP, because they're not interested in trivial things like that. They are interested in beliefs. To be a true Scot, you must back the Nationalists. And nationalism is a troubling thing. It preaches division and sectarianism, and can end in dark places. This is an ugly force let loose in the UK, and the SNP may find in time that they have released a monster they cannot control.

6) Tee hee hee- Only time I've been pleased with the result first past the post gives. Yes, it denied voices to millions of people. But UKIP need to be fought and shown for what they really are, and if them not having a platform to preach their vicious message is part of that, then so be it.

There is a lot for those on the left to be afraid of in the next five years. Billions worth of further cuts, considerably more than we saw in the last five years The potential exit from the EU. A diminishing of Britain's voice in the world. Further pain for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. The very existence of the UK.

But I will end on a positive. When I was born, Britain was just over halfway through a long period of one party rule, particularly partisan right wing rule at that. Yes, there was misery and suffering for many. But the country didn't end. The left did (eventually) bounce back. And that was when the Conservatives were led by their most electorally successful leader ever. For all he looks it today, David Cameron is no Mrs Thatcher.

Keep hoping, keep fighting.

I've Made My Decision

I can't remember exactly when I decided how to vote this coming Thursday.

Perhaps it was right at the start. In the twilight hours of May 11th 2010, as David Cameron took office at the end of the first general election I'd ever been part of.

Or maybe it was the next morning, when the man I had given my vote to stood next to Cameron amidst the May sunshine and the flowers, laughing and joking about their exciting new venture.

Maybe it was November 2010, when the party I had voted for went back on centuries of progressive principles, and its own claims of honesty, and saddled future generations with mountains of student debt.

Perhaps May 2011, when dreams of a fairer voting system were shattered by Tory duplicity.

Or March 2012, as I listened in disbelief to the Chancellor deliver his budget, putting taxes on lunches whilst cutting the top rate of income tax.

From September 2012 until February 2013, I was a near- NEET, working barely a few hours a week on a zero hours contract. Nothing will stoke your anger like unsocial hours, poor pay, a crappy job, and lots of time sat at home in despair.

Maybe it was the documentary I watched about foodbanks, in November 2012, which left me so angry I couldn't sleep that evening, so incensed was I at the thought that people were going hungry in a 21st century Western democracy.

And since 2013, the relentless rise of a political party which represents the most abhorrent parts of the body politic, which plays on the fears of the vulnerable, the poor, the exploited, and blames it on those from a different country. And the government, rather than taking the high ground, has pandered to the xenophobes.

That's not even counting the stuff I can't pin down. Bedroom taxes, badger culls, the EU. This government has not represented me in the slightest.

So sorry, Nick, but on Thursday you will not be getting my support again. I thought your party still had the remains of the Social Democratic Party in it. I was wrong.

Where does that leave me? The right wingers are out. Just on principle. Any political idea that sees the creation of money as being more important than the well being of the people can just sod right off.

The Greens. Ah yes. They have complicated things a lot. I am sorely tempted. But for every nine great policies, there is one fairly crazy one. No, I don't want Britain to leave NATO, have they seen what's happening in Ukraine? Actually, nuclear power stations are fine unless they were built by the Soviet Union. In fact, I think that being a member of Al-Quaeda, the IRA, or other internationally condemned criminal organisations is probably a crime, as I can't imagine they get many members who join for the benefits package. The Greens also surprisingly illiberal, with a nice long list of things that they would ban. I suppose my fear is that they've become a haven for idealistic, middle class lefties, who can campaign in poetry, but can't govern, to borrow from the late Mario Cuomo in the US. Oh, and Natalie Bennett. Most likely in the future, Greens. But not this time.

For 115 years, the left on this country has had Labour. God knows it hasn't always been perfect, or as left-wing as it could be. But in terms of real imporvements in the lives of millions of people, Labour has the track record, it has the ideas, it has the nouse. Hell, in Ed Miliband, it may even have the leader.

Now, I live in a safe Tory seat. But, in the midst of the mess of the morning after the night before, when the people will have spoken, but their message won't be clear, Ed Miliband is going to need every vote he can get in his quest for legitimacy. He's got mine.