The pressure ramps up
Simon Campion-Brown is unwell.
I don’t wish to over-dramatize things but Rust readers beyond a certain age may recognise this cultural reference to Jeffrey Bernard, who used to write a column entitled Low Life for The Spectator magazine in the 1970s and 1980s. This detailed his indulgent life largely based upon alcohol and cigarettes as viewed from his habitual perch in the Coach and Horses pub in Greek Street, Soho. The Spectator’s editorial team, faced with the not-infrequent failure of Mr Bernard to file his articles before their ‘going to press’ deadline (or indeed at all), used to deploy the euphemistic phrase ‘is unwell’ to cover what all concerned – including The Spectator’s readership – knew was 95% more likely to have been the result of alcohol abuse than anything else.
If you will allow me to expand a smidgeon, some may also recall that legendary Fleet Street journalist Keith Waterhouse wrote a highly-regarded play entitled Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, whose first production starred Peter O’Toole as Bernard and opened in Brighton in September 1989 before eventually transferring to the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue for its West End in October the same year.
My wife and I saw the production at that venue either in late 1989 or (more likely) early 1990. It was a wonderfully-funny night out and the only occasion that I saw O’Toole perform in the flesh.
But I digress. Simon Campion-Brown isn’t actually – or should I say, physically – unwell.
Rather he rang me up on Wednesday afternoon and, with more sadness than frustration I felt, announced that unfortunately he did not feel he could continue to report upon the General Election campaign. The way he expressed it, it was as if he was an airliner that had suffered a bout of metal fatigue but the truth (as I saw it) was that he had simply become bored with the whole process: the political parties’ campaigns, the media coverage, the interminable inane vox pops from around the country, and most of all the continual refusal of all politicians to answer the question but instead simply trot out what their Party HQ had told them spout, come what may ad nauseam.
Accordingly, I endorsed his decision to head off to the West Country for a ten day break. In many respects I can sympathise where he is coming from.
It would have been exceedingly dull if this Election had panned out exactly as the pundits and Tory Party HQ had expected, i.e. a landslide victory for Theresa May resulting at a stroke in her ‘sorting’ two key issues: (1) the continual dirt-throwing accusation from opposition parties that she had no personal mandate for anything since she had never submitted herself as Premier to the electorate and (2) the presumption that it would also greatly strengthen her hand in negotiating Brexit from the EU.
A combination of Mrs May’s dry and awkward personality and style finally being exposed to public view, a raft of campaigning disasters and perhaps also – during the past month – the electorate’s delight that at last things were happening that made the whole process more than just a one-way victory march have rather dulled the Tory Party’s sword and possibly even sown some doubts about the eventual result.
Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn has had a ‘good War’. I subscribe to the popular received opinion that he’s a deeply flawed candidate as a prospective Prime Minister (and also probably as a Party leader at all) but that – almost as a saving grace that has spiced things up – he has proved himself (probably something of a shock this even to his own Parliamentary former colleagues now standing for re-election as MPs) to be a surprise hit both at public events and when encountering the media.
You could argue, of course, that he had the advantage of beginning from a position of little or no expectation and so the only way was up. However, as a media personality he has done several degrees better than the only person he ultimately has to be compared with, the ‘do it by numbers’ incumbent Premier.
Probably as both the Tories and the Labour Party were hoping it might, the Election has now come down to two polarised positions.
The Tories like to think they stand for economic competence, responsibility upon issues such as police, security and the military – and the fact that ‘the country needs to be able to afford what it spends’.
To a degree the Labour Party has benefitted from the polar-opposite view, i.e. that the ‘austerity years’ during which the masses have suffered more than the elite (by the very nature of the beast, if incomes stagnate then those at the bottom suffer more), need to come to an end. The other side of this coin is that it comes with a requirement to invest in infrastructure, jobs the public services – if only to get them back to where they were – and this is unlikely to happen under the Tories.
The Tories fire back, of course, that a hazard of being ‘the responsible party/government’ is that they inevitably then cop flak for being ‘the Nasty Party’. Labour can only pay – as usual – for their ‘La La Land’ spending plans by putting the country back in hock and landing the bill on future generations, which is precisely what they (the Tories) are trying to avoid.
However, as night follows day, in this situation it was always likely that Labour – despite the Corbyn factor – would make advances.
Anyone on an average or worse income would like austerity to stop, have a bit of a break and (hopefully) some fun in life again. All the Tories are promising is ‘more of the same’.
At least Labour is ‘pressing the right buttons’ with its extravagant spending promises … plus there’s no point in voting for any other Party if you want to prevent the Tories getting back into power … so Labour are attracting the young and disaffected to their ranks.
And that includes those disaffected as a result of the Brexit Referendum result.
For those of us dug in for the bitter end and following the course of the Election, surely the best – whatever that might be – is still yet to come as the politicians strain every sinew in order to persuade the voters of their cause.
Strap yourselves in, folks!
