4543/17462
My last major jaunt away from home for this tour as The Cannibal and I headed off to Shrewsbury, Stockton, Leeds and Peterborough. After almost a fortnight at home with my family I had to bid them adieu until the early hours of Monday morning. It gets to be more of a wrench every time. It’s only a short time away, thank goodness and after this I will be able to make it home from nearly every gig. And how lucky am I that I got to spend so much of the last fortnight with my new daughter?
There was time to vote this morning and we took Phoebe with us to observe the democratic process. I didn’t know if she’d be allowed in the booth with us, for fear that she would influence our vote, by making us consider what awful future she might have to endure if we chose unwisely, but no one stopped her going into the booth with her mum and who knows how they colluded in there.
Though I understand the sentiment (and it’s one that I have espoused and done a whole stand-up show about), I wasn’t sure that the Twitterati’s constant reminders to go and vote were really that helpful. Or at least they had the danger of being patronising and annoying. I told my followers not to forget to tell people who’d made up their own mind by now about whether they were voting to vote. Though I should have told them to remind any celebrities who weren’t tweeting about not forgetting to vote to remember to tweet “Don’t forget to vote!” Equally I was worried some people might get so fixated with reminding other people to vote that they themselves might forget to vote. I was fairly confident that we were heading for a hung parliament and had somehow convinced myself that Ed Milliband had done enough to become a PM (maybe of a rainbow alliance). Sure he was doltish and prone to looking weird (but then so am I so I don’t mind that), but was it just wishful thinking to believe that his attempts to look tough to Jeremy Paxman (while tripping over his words) or his attempt to walk with authority off a podium (before tripping over his feet). I didn’t want the alternative of a Conservative led coalition that would chip away further at the NHS and the lives of the poor and disabled, so I convinced myself that Ed could do it. The polls looked promising. I was pretty certain we’d be having another election in six months time.
But as I got back to the hotel after a quietish (in terms of numbers and audience reaction) gig in Shrewsbury (the home of the Pie Pie and the Pie Pie Pie), reality had a bit of a jolt for me and the Twitterati. It looked like Cameron might be close to getting an actual proper majority. Twitter, the news and the polls had lied to me, so I went to sleep just hoping that it was the exit polls that had lied. Surely I’d wake up and Ed and his Millstone would be moving into Number 10, with the backing of the SNP. I wasn’t yet dreaming, but I was dreaming.
This is democracy though. It’s all about what most people vote for. And people are fucking idiots, so you can’t be surprised when they do something stupid. Whatever had happened there would be strange and volatile times ahead for us. And if I have my way, parliament will be overthrown and I will be installed as an initially benevolent dictator, who ultimately becomes paranoid and evil and destroys the world.
It seems that all political systems have their flaws.
