“Truly, we are living in historic times.” I think that should perhaps be said in Brian Blessed’s voice. Or Rod Hull’s. One of the two. Instead it seems like the BBC’s Political Editor, Penfold’s Dad, seems to be saying it at the end of every single bloody piece to camera he does, but in his own stupid bloody sanctimonious bloody prick of voice. In fact if he did his reports in the style of Penfold it would be far more amusing “Oh crumbs PM…” and so on and so forth.
But yes, we are indeed living in historic times. Except we’re not yet. But on reflection we will be. Eventually. Honestly. And not just because historians will look back on the first few months of this year and marvel at the fact that Biffa Bacon’s Mutha is the most talented person in the Britain. I would write about Britain’s Got Talent, but a) I’ve not watched it and b) Chris TT has done a far better job than I ever could over here. But yes, historic times. Yadda. But they are, if you step back away from the hyperbole and try to gain a bit of distance and perspective.
I remember studying the 1867 Reform Act and it’s effects when I was in school, so it’s not unbelievable to think that at least some of the current shenanigans will of course be debated in depth by bored students sometime in the future. Of course by then there will be far more primary sources at hand, and a historian will merely need to take the disk marked ‘Entire Internet 2009′ and inject it into his eye to find out everything that happened this year, after sifting through 17 brain’s worth of porn. This will of course feature some facts, but mainly three different articles about any given subject. These are ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘I agree with the man who said No!’ Not that anyone will pay attention, they’ll just doodle pictures of the history teacher being fellated by goats or whatever it is that students of the future will do. Possibly lessons will involve actual holographic goat interaction to keep people interested.
The thing is though it’s probably not going to make an iota of difference. At the moment the party leaders are just spuffing their first thought onto the biscuit of electoral reform. It’s quite unseemly really. All of a sudden we’re in a constitutional crisis, but no-one knows why. A cynic might suggest that all of this is being put into the public domain just prior to an election in order to perhaps push a different agenda. Maybe because the main parties are pretty much pro-Europe and it’s the (generally) anti-Europe fringe groups of vegetarians and racists that are likely to pick up some votes. Hmmm. That’ll learn you for not having a referendum to ratify a treaty that is so dull that even the contentious bullet points are the literary equivalent of 17 pints of morphine. And of course the Daily Torygraph hate Europe with the passion of the Christ.
Also, if we get some kind of electoral re-districting it will not be of benefit to the Labour party. Things have gone pretty well for them in terms of electoral boundaries over the years so a move away from First Past The Post or a reduction in the number of MP’s may isolate them for years. Somehow an agenda that is entirely unrelated to the issue at hand has been pushed to the fore, deflecting further allegations about the Tories and enabling Julie Kirkbride to be pushed from her seat with far less fanfare than the resignation of an MP should merit. It’s almost reminiscent of the way that, when faced with a Vietnam Veteran as an opponent in the 2004 election in the middle of a war, the Republicans chose to attack John Kerry for being a ‘nam vet. Ignore the facts, but bluster on as if it’s other people doing exactly what you are trying to hide from actually doing yourself.
All in all, it’s been the ruling party that have been hit worst by all of this, and it’s generally been their own fault too. This would not have happened on Alistair Campbell’s watch. Next month’s Euro elections will be sort of thing that you will need to mention in your essay if you want to get full marks in History in the year 2358.
One possible upshot of all of this is that Scotland and Wales will leave the UK governance and head for Europe. This will of course scupper any chance of this country being anything other than a centre-right elective dictatorship for all time (which is kind of is now, but that’s the fault of the Herr Blair Bunch) But I’m waffling on. I don’t know enough about history to make cogent comparisons to the past, I care little for nationalist politics of any hue and I lost the will to write this somewhere in the middle of the last week. Still, an election next week. I fucking love a good election, I do. I just can’t wait to see the swing-o-meter.*
*Yes, I know that they generally don’t gauge the swing European elections, but they will transpose the results as if it were a general election onto a swing-o-meter. And I will enjoy that bit. From a graphical perspective. I’ll shut up now.
