Portsmouth University Visiting Lecturer and stand-up comic Matthew Alford takes a lighthearted glance at the 2019 General Election campaign, which he follows swiftly with a heavy-hearted gawp.
I am the perfect person to write a column about the upcoming election because I am one of this country’s many still undecided voters, on whom the whole result hinges. That means I am undecided whether to vote for the party I wholly like and agree with or one that I hate but which will more likely keep the Tories out in my constituency. Ah, Great Britain – the cradle of democracy.
I really don’t actually understand how anyone earning less than six figures thinks they’d lose out under Labour. There is supposedly the problem of anti-Semitism but these complaints relate to less than 0.06% of the party membership. In any large organisation there will always be a few hundred repugnant arseholes. At least with the Labour Party they don’t have seats in the House of Commons.
Labour is also struggling because some people loved the 2016 referendum so much they can’t stand the idea of doing it again, as though it was some kind of shamanistic-hedonistic house party and that any attempt to recreate it would only end in a drab pub crawl.
Someone actually said to me the other day that they didn’t trust Jeremy Corbyn because ‘Any politician who doesn’t have the balls to nail their flag to the mast on Europe won’t get my vote’. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for any politician stupid enough to use their balls to nail a flag into a mast, but some of you seem to like Boris Johnson.
Corbyn is actually less radically left-wing than people recognise, too. Sometimes I think he’s a bit like Donald Trump – he wants to build a wall. Then three more walls, a roof, doors, a window, a path, and a nice little garden. He wants to do that a million times and solve the social housing crisis in this country.
I’m not sure what to say about the other political players right now and no one pays me for this so I’m under no obligation to do it thoroughly, which now that I think about it, is a damn good reason not to treat teachers and nurses so bloody terribly.
Nicola Sturgeon is a thousand miles away, so she’s really none of my business and Jo Swinson has all the air of a woman who only recently stopped telling stuffed toys what to eat on a picnic. Alone.
Boris Johnson himself requires little mockery because you’ve all already done it yourselves a thousand times. Yet you still seem to think he’s just about okay, don’t you? Draw a line, people – he called Muslim women ‘letter boxes’, for God’s sake. He’s hardly a ‘pillar’ of the community himself. I’d like to ‘stamp’ on his face!
Johnson also: said ‘fuck the families’ of the 7/7 terror attacks; said that patients should be charged to use the NHS; used racist and homophobic language on numerous occasions; callously joked that Libya would be a good place to invest after they’ve ‘cleared the dead bodies away’ (when he was Foreign Secretary). In evidence far too extensive to list here, he and many of his team are widely acknowledged to be liars and thugs, including Iain Duncan Smith and Dominic Raab, who just might lose their seats on Thursday. Oh yeah sorry, I don’t always do jokes.
Of course, I’ll be fine if the Conservatives get in. I own half a semi (ahem, ladies). And under Labour they’d probably attach a horrible homeless person’s house to the other side of my house. Then tax my ex-marriage or my bedroom. Or make me marry a bedroom. Yes, that’s it – Labour will make me marry a window and live with a Polish divorcee from Bongo Bongo land.
Plus, to be honest I’ve always agreed with a lot of policies from the right. I like that Margaret Thatcher took the free milk from school children. I like that Theresa May then got rid of their free lunches. Surely now under Boris Johnson we can finally get rid of their pesky cutlery. Maybe he can fit them with gastric bands.
I also agree with fox hunting, particularly for the fox that messes up my bins every Wednesday night. I’d like to be allowed to crouch in a big black wheelie bin at 3am waiting to tear him limb from limb with a couple of half-starved cockapoos.
And face it, if Labour wins power and brings in free internet for everyone it’ll end up being dial-up and we’ll be back to Brit Pop and 9/11 before you can say ‘Wonderwall’. Or we’ll be back in the 1970s. Ask yourself, do you really want the return of space hoppers, mass terrorism, and Travis? No you don’t. I’m voting UKIP. Actually, I’m voting Plaid Cymru – at least let’s get the Welsh to shove off.
