Four days, forty-five minutes on... Here we are my friends, on the brink of, well, nobody knows. Three days, eight hours ago it was officially almost definitely certainly a hung parliament. Three days ago, that was about all that was definitely certain. Two days ago, it was a Labour/Lib Dem will they, won't they. This morning, the Mirror went with this fantastic headline:
"CON DEM
NATION"
You've gotta love the red-tops. If you go to their website there's an even better treat - you can read about Gordon Brown's pending resignation as Labour leader alongside such articles as "Kerry Katona's Tongue" and "Guiness Guzzler". Wow, the news really is a revelation.
But I'm forgetting myself: the big revelation for the day is surely the aforementioned political announcement: that the Labour Party Conference in September will now be the campaign-ground (sorry to use such a tired phrase) for whoever wants Brown's job. And as, unlike last time, I don't think anyone has called dibs, it could be interesting. In fact, 'could be' is putting it mildly; it's looking increasingly likely that said position will also have "PM" tagged onto it.
I have to say, it's a clever tactical move. Crow if you want to, all you haters of Brown, but he's not going just yet - and he's not promising that his party will, either. Oh no. Labour is in it for a fight. It's not for nothing that Clegg has been labelled 'the king-maker' - the fate of this nation lies in his hands. And before you accuse me of melodrama, the facts speak for themselves: Brown can potentially negotiate a Labour-Lib Dem deal as a result of this decision alone, which is nothing to do with the policies which the parties fought so hard over, and on the strength of which we (presumably) elected our MPs. If a change of personality at the top is all it takes, then we should have genuine concern for the good of our nation at the hands of those who may be bargaining more for power than for policy. It remains to be seen whether or not Clegg will cave at this point; it will be a test of both his character and his political morals.
For those of us who see politics combining pleasure and business, watching the reactions of voters in the fallout of Thursday's results has been interesting to say the least. I was there, huddled on a leather couch into the wee and then positively breakfast-time hours of Friday morning, staking out the college bar with a group of die-hard first-time voters. We "ooh-ed" and "ah-ed" as the hopes of a series of candidates were dashed or elevated, and the Green Party enthusiast on the couch beside me stopped just short of physical violence as the screen showed more and more blue - he finally went to bed when Brighton got its Green MP, leaving his pepsi cans behind him. I would not have wanted to be the person clearing up that bar the following day, nor would I have wanted to be a boss trying to coax work out of shattered employees on Friday morning.
The thing is, even with the mess and excruciating drawn-out-ness of the whole thing, it was incredibly satisfying in a way that the lack of conclusive result should negate. As long as I've known what the word 'politics' means, I've had a fascination with how it works. Maybe it came from family get-together which turned into heated debates over foreign policy. Maybe it's the imposing tome of Margaret Thatcher's Statecraft in my parents' bookshelf, which, though I have never attempted to read it, exudes a steady sense of its own significance in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it's the local politics that made me accost a TV reporter outside my primary school at the ripe age of seven or eight, to give him a piece of my mind. Whatever it is, on Thursday I finally had the immense privilege of officially participating in a system which, whatever it's flaws, is the mainstay of modern democracy in our nation. And as the result came in for my constituency, I saw how much my vote had mattered.
Obviously there are problems with the way democracy is outworked in Britain. We hear it every four years when people start making noise about an archaic electoral system. We hear it when devolved bodies are not given the powers they were expecting. We hear it when a promised referendum is persistently denied us. And I, for one, am not content to sit and put up with that which is in clear need of change. But I am glad that we have the opportunity to voice our opinions at all, and I am encouraged that so many young voters recognised the significance of their voices last week. It may take time to iron out, and we can be sure that the result will not be to everyone's liking, but if there's one thing I've learnt from this election, it's that Britain hasn't sunk into apathy just yet. And if those of us cutting our teeth can join those measuring up their walking canes, there's no reason why we can't preserve that freedom, and take steps to improve and safeguard it. As long as we are able to hold our leaders and representatives accountable, then Britain isn't down the proverbial toilet. If it looks like it's going that way, then let's stop complaining and make something happen.
Vive la revolution!
