And so the elections have come and gone.
The wooing game referred to in my previous article, has now progressed to full-time dating. The lady has gone to type and made the safest choice. With no bad boys in the line-up, the underestimated Don Davey Cameron has sent Nicky Clegg and Eddie Miliband, to sleep with the political fishes. Of course, like with most of these things, one cannot conquer all of one's enemies in one swoop. Even with the best net in the business, the prime minister could not forestall the ascendancy of that formidable sea queen, The Sturgeon.
In the cold light of day, political careers have been resurrected and egos destroyed. 1 in every 8 British voters went for UKIP (yep!) effectively letting David Cameron back into Downing Street, via the backdoor and the Scottish Nationalist Party now have roughly 1 in every 12 British MPs.
The Scots may not overwhelmingly want their own country, but it is now undoubted they possess a fierce sense of their nationalism. Clearly, no other party bar the SNP could convince them of an interest or even a slight recognition of that absolute fact. The panicked arrival of the British party leaders, propelled by the ominous polls on the eve of the Independence vote (and their subsequent failure to deliver on their rushed promises), effectively nailed that political coffin.
The inevitable postmortems have of course commenced.
Labour stakeholders, in typical kamikaze style - right off the bat - have begun subtle internal wrangling over their next leader. The Lib-Dems, like a millionaire who has just lost their enormous fortune, remain dazed and seeking a holiday in their favourite spot, before re-launching the party. The Tories, like most, are emerging shell-shocked from their majority and exploding into a chorus of; now that we that we found power, what are we gonna do with it? UKIP, like the political embryo that the party is, appeared to have arrived at the party so late, that they only discovered we were not using PR, once the elections were over!
Talking of the Tories, it was a thing of magnificent irony, to see the Prime Minister standing in front of Number 10, on the very spot where he had called Ed Miliband's character into question a few weeks before and now, watch him shower his fallen adversary with praises. Oh, what it must feel like to be a winner, albeit, for that magical honeymoon period when ones farts smell like roses.
Hopefully, Mr Cameron will soon realise that though he has effectively slain Ed the Dragon, he has also successfully stirred a far more formidable foe in his party's right-wing. It is called politics for a reason...the euphoria will pass and the backstabbing, will no doubt begin.
Of course when seismic political events occur, custodians of current affairs find it impossible not to lean into hyperbole (my guilt is splashed all over this piece), but the fervent hope is our politicians do not suffer a similar fate. After all, they are generally made of sterner stuff. Elections are won and lost. Careers do not need to get destroyed, if the vanquished have that golden ability to treat failure, like success; the same.
Even the greatest Brit of them all, Churchill, lost at the ballot box. His distant relative and currently the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama, lost in his bid for the House of Representatives, eight years before his greatest political moment. So, to the prostrate figures of Ed Balls, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Vince Cable, Nigel Farage et al, arise...for this too, shall pass.
Finally, in the aftermath of the electoral reverberations, it appears that even in the highest echelons of our society, certain bits of grey matter have been shaken out of place. Or how else can one describe Labour's David Lammy, in this most serious of times, seeking to become his beleaguered party's leader?
Whilst that particular conundrum marinates in your prefrontal cortex, are you aware Michael Gove is your new Justice Minister?
Now I know what my colleague meant, when she said:
"Influential people get Justice, the rest of us get the Law!"