My son announced that they had had their school mock election last night, and that he had voted UKIP. He's getting really good at being a really bad wind-up merchant. And he didn't come clean straight away; he then declared he'd voted Labour before finally saying 'How could I betray you mummy? Of course I voted Conservative'! Salient point - a vote for any other party is a betrayal. He was thinking on a personal level, I am thinking on a national one. This country is leaking debt in a way that rivals the crude flows from the damaged Gulf oil rig - but more about that in a moment.
I was thinking last night that it was a bit like Christmas eve: no idea what 'present' we are going to get today; planning on being with family and friends; staying up too late; a no-news day (are exit polls really news?) and everyone's mind is on the same thing....
Yet I don't think it hasn't turned out like we thought it would. Fascinating though the leadership debates were, they have left many with a firm impression of the leader they like but varying levels of confusion over how they would lead. How do we move on, taking the benefits of engagement from the leaders debate but reducing the costs of confusion?
Subjects we thought would be key turned out not to be. Where has the NHS been apart from the cancer confusion (a voter told me yesterday he wouldn't vote Tory as they were cutting cancer medicines...)? Why haven't we heard more on Afghanistan? Immigration, a taboo at the last election, has been a hot topic. And what happened to the 'mumsnet' election? Women have not been seen, let alone heard. Ok, that's a mercy when we're considering Harriet Harperson, and Stephanie Flanders is a superb media exception, but I wonder if Gordon's 'that woman' jibe reflected the all too frequent macho irritation with having to consider a female perspective?...
We know of course that it always comes down to 'it's the economy, stupid' but truly, hasn't that turned out to be this year's taboo? i.e. How to tackle the deficit? In my humble opinion, the only reason we aren't still in recession is the billions Labour has spewed into the public sector that have created a false-positive in economic growth. They won't admit it; the Tories can only guess at the severity of the spillage and for an ex oil-man, Vince has remained typically opaque.
I am longing, hoping and praying for a Conservative victory tonight so that George Osborne can put in place his equivalent of the 100-ton concrete-and-steel contraption for oil siphoning and apply it to the debt that has polluted our future. Like the oil, so much damage is done and it will contaminate the nation for a long time to come. So just as this election has not turned out the way we thought it would, here's hoping the the real poll turns out better than we have been led to believe. Off I go to GOTV!
