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Theresa May expected obedience – but the voters have escaped and gone back to the wild
09 Friday Jun 2017
Posted by Mike Sivier in Uncategorized
Theresa May: Bowed in defeat? Or had she simply fallen asleep?
When I woke up today (not this morning), I wasn't sure exactly where I was.
It seems likely that most of the population of the UK was in the same situation, after yesterday's general election.
I should explain that Thursday ran away from This Writer – or possibly with me – in a big way. I had to take Mrs Mike out to vote quite early in the day, and then take her to Telford, where her mother had an operation during the day and needed a family member to look after her in the aftermath.
Leaving them at the hospital (they would have transport back to Mrs Mike's Mum's home), I came back to Vox Political Towers, wrote a few pieces exhorting people to vote for different reasons, and then went out for my daily trip to meet a friend of mine for coffee and conversation at a local hotel…
… where I met another friend who suggested we move on to another venue after he voted, which we did. There…
… I met two more friends with whom I moved on to two more drinking establishments, after convincing one of them to go and vote at the last minute. I got home around 1am.
But the evening didn't end there!
I sat down in front of the TV and spent a happy couple of hours watching coverage of the election results on various TV channels and tweeting about it. Then around 3am I had a response from a friend who lives five minutes down the road, and was also watching the coverage. He and his flatmate invited me over for an impromptu election party.
So I had to go, didn't I?
And that is why I woke up uncertain about my location. It turned out I was in my own house, but in an unfamiliar position in a different part of it, with the cat sprawling across my head. A precarious moment!
I suppose one could say that Mrs Mike had expected me to continue in the same domesticated way I behave when I'm acting as her carer. Instead, it seems, at the first opportunity I escaped and went back to the wild.
Isn't that what the UK electorate did? Have we escaped from the yoke of neoliberalism and gone "back to the wild" of politics?
Just as I woke up in a precarious situation, so has the country – although not with a cat on its collective head (I hope).
It is now certain that Theresa May made a fatal mistake when she called her 'snap' election. I think Tim Farron had it right in his speech today, when he said she acted from arrogance and vanity.
She said she wanted an increased mandate in order to push through her vision of Brexit – a 'hard' Brexit that most people in the country don't want.
Instead, she is left at the head of the largest party – but in a 'hung' Parliament, having lost her majority. She needs support from another party, and is hanging all her hopes on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
There's just one problem – the DUP absolutely does not want a 'hard' Brexit. Any kind of alliance with such an organisation would utterly defeat the stated point of the general election.
If the Conservatives do enter such an arrangement, for the sake of hanging on to power, surely it must mean that Mrs May must resign?
Again, as Tim Farron said in his speech, if she has any self-respect at all, this seems the only course of action.
He has made it clear that the Liberal Democrats will not entertain any notions of supporting the Tories.
The Scottish Nationalists, bitten hard by Tories in last night's results, certainly won't.
Labour obviously won't. Jeremy Corbyn is a prime minister in waiting.
It seems most of the parties have calculated that the majority of the British public don't want Conservative neoliberalism any more.
As I type this, Mrs May is delivering a speech, claiming that she will give us the Brexit that we demanded last year (a lie), combat Islamist terrorism (a lie), and that only the Tories are entitled to continue in government – supported by the DUP (a lie, it seems – she doesn't seem to have spoken to them and the DUP's leaders have said she cannot take them for granted).
She's trying to pretend that nothing has gone wrong.
What a mistake.
This is a dead woman walking – and she either doesn't know it or won't accept it. She'll have a rude awakening soon.
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14 thoughts on "Theresa May expected obedience – but the voters have escaped and gone back to the wild"
NMac said:
May's arrogance knew no bounds. In fact I would venture to suggest that she was so arrogant that it bred contempt for the electorate. She thought Jeremy Corbyn would be a walk over and that she would come away with the thumping majority. Instead she showed herself to be totally lacking in good judgement, totally unable to communicate with people, and altogether a truly odious person. There are already rumours of yet another Tory leadership contest, with Johnson as the favourite – …excuse me while I stop laughing!
Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, despite having a firestorm of lies, poison and vitriol thrown at him by the Tories and the disgusting right-wing media, kept cool, calm and collected. He did not resort to personal insults and he showed himself to be a real leader and man of principle. I personally voted for him as leader and I never lost faith in him. He has come out of this Tory-induced mess with his reputation and stature greatly enhanced and should there be another election soon I have no doubts that he and the Labour Party will win an outright majority.
MerryMichaelW said:
Dear Mike, I am glad that you had such a brilliant night. You certainly deserve it. If I were you, I would cherish it. Best. Michael.
Neilth said:
She will 'combat Islamist Fundamentalism' while forming an alliance with a Christian Fundamentalist sect with policies that more than match Sharia Law. The DUP are anti gay, anti abortion anti sex education creationists who have long had real links to so called loyalist terrorist groups in Northern Ireland. They colluded with the UDA etc delaying the peace process by not laying aside their weapons long after the Provisional IRA put theirs out of use.
joanna said:
I heard that the DUP has agreed!,I hope that is wrong!!!
I also heard that there could be a chance of another election which would be held in August?
Aww you like cats you big softie :0)
I am fostering two cats with FIV I needed to give a better life than in a cage.
It seems The Sun and the daily mail are furious with May and they are regretting the they tried to destroy Jeremy Corbyn! I don't know if it is true but it does sound funny, apparently Rupert Murdoch stormed out of a meeting early this morning when the results came in. And Owen Jones is regretting that he didn't back JC more.
The only thing these things have done is muted my devastation a little, I just hope we have another election in August because Jeremy will certainly have the upper hand!
All I really know about politics is the Tories are in it doesn't matter by how much, all I know is that they are still a huge thorn in the side of the UK!!!!
Zippi said:
Sadly, people woke up too late and others, clearly, were scared, conditioned, or stupid. When, in history, has there been a manifesto like this? When, in our lifetimes, will we see another chance, like this? When will there be another politician who actually cares about people?
John said:
Have some sympathy for her as a human being. We're all dead people walking… She inherited a poison chalice after winning a leadership contest that exposed the nasty party for what they are.
David Cameron, George Osborne, their vicious austerity imposed on the most vulnerable and their incompetence are the architects of this defeat, they've plunged the country into utter chaos.
That said, don't lose sight of the fact that an electable Labour party would have smashed this contest, then again we wouldn't have had an election if that had been the case.
Florence said:
May is a zombie PM with a zombie economy, zombie manifesto. Just listening to Lamont defending austerity as TINA, not a political choice, oh no, not a choice he says, another example of the dead hand on the rudder here.
Labour breathed life into UK politics, even praised by Peyer Oborne. I would contend that if the electorate went feral, it was in terms of no longer obeying the establishment. How ever their way of going feral was to support the inspired manifesto of Corbyn and Labour that was a return to decency, social inclusion, and rebuilding society.
franceskaywriter said:
What's making me so happy is that JC has awoken the nation's youth. Finally, we are seeing them spearheading the fight for social justice that I joined when I was in my twenties. It's the natural place for hope and optimism. I feel confident that the youth of this country will put JC in No.10, perhaps sooner than we think..
Joan Edington said:
I was thinking about this at 5:30am when I realised that the Tories had taken so many seats from the SNP. At first I could have cried but then I had this thought. The Tories will be thinking of all the seats they have gained here but, due to Cameron's prompt anouncement of EVEL, the day after our Indyref, these nice new MPs will not be able to vote with their new chums down south on a vast swathe of issues. The same will apply to all the DUP MPs. I do realise that the new Scottish Labour MPs will be restricted in the same way but there were less of them so the balance goes in their favour.
Kenneth Billis said:
Once again the Tories are willing to do anything for the benefit of their party rather than the country. Brings to mind the referendum which Cameron called purely for party political reasons.
Also, it wasn't long ago that there was much agitation amongst the Tories to disqualify the SNP from any debates and votes on exclusively English matters. But here they are sticking to their beliefs and trying to shack up with the DUP in order to enable their grasping fingers to hang on to power.
kaboios said:
Mrs May has been depicted as a robot in the media but she is actually a puppet. Prior to theelection the likes of Dacre and Murdoch were pulling the strings but the Conservative Party have now taken control. She will remain PM until the Conservative high command tell her it's time to go.
Dez said:
Mike, If your band does covers what better old pop song dedicated to Mrs May ie Manfred Manns " If you've gotta go – go now"
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