As usual, pre-election despair has left me simultaneously wanting to write and feeling too miserable at the likely outcomes to bring myself to do so. I have half-written some party-overview stuff, but having stepped back from the campaigns for a moment and considered the meta-debate, I’ve realised they’re useless. People are either making promises they can’t keep or lying through their teeth about things they’d have no intention of keeping even if they were able to. Party platforms are therefore, broadly speaking, one of three things: lies, fantasy, or complete insanity.

For example…

George Orwell’s 1922

The Tory campaign has been especially – irredeemably, I would argue – vile and underhand. Regardless of anyone’s political views, the party should be shunned purely on a moral basis. Between pretending to be a fact-checking service during the first debate and dodging any sort of meaningful scrutiny of the Prime Minister, their disregard for decency and truth is all-encompassing. There’s no need to read the manifesto; their actions speak to the underlying truth that they will lie, cheat and bully to whatever degree they feel necessary to win. So why read a manifesto when:

1. Everything in it is entirely subject to change and is probably just a lie anyway, since there’s no reason for it not to be a lie.
2. The message of adopting this strategy is an expansion on Boris’ notorious “fuck business” platform; it is now a general “fuck democracy”, with a more specific “fuck you” strongly implied as a part of that. We should all know where we stand with that.

It has been lie after lie after lie. Not subjective misinterpretation of a set of facts; just lies. Outright, shameless lies. You don’t believe them, do you? After all this? Please? And if you do, then I really, truly want to know what you would consider persuasive evidence that would convince you otherwise. Boris turning up at your house to personally gaslight you while he steals all your ornaments and shits in your fridge?

NHS? Not on the table. Except we now know it is, thanks to leaked documents showing that to be the case. The response from Tory HQ? Nothing to see here. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

And why would they be lying so shamelessly, avoiding scrutiny so determinedly, if they were on the side of the people? Because they don’t care about us. They don’t think our opinions matter, they don’t feel accountable for whatever blatant lies they feel will be useful on any given day, and they don’t want our measly interests – healthcare, economic stability, education, basic human decency – to get in the way of them staying in power to do whatever the hell they want.

And all this despite having the indisputable, well-evidenced backing of a state media outlet in the form of the BBC – in addition to the wealthy autocrats behind the likes of The Mail and other right-wing propaganda factories. Even with that innate advantage, they still feel the need to act exactly like something out of a book which is the byword for a dystopian society where the voters don’t matter, truth doesn’t matter, and compassion and integrity are seen as weaknesses to be exploited.

This sociopathic approach to politics and the electorate should scare everyone for one reason if no other: if it works, it will be the new normal. All future elections will be fought on such terms. Who says what will become irrelevant in determining how to vote, because we won’t be able to rely on any of it being even distantly related to the truth. You can still go and cast a vote, but it will be meaningless because you will have no way of knowing what you are really voting for.

Regardless of Brexit, the economy, the NHS or anything else, a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Orwellian politics becoming the norm in this country. That’s not hyperbole or opinion; it’s an entirely reasonable and well-evidenced conclusion, verging on being a brute fact. It is what their actions have said with far greater volume and clarity than their words ever could.

Fortunately, the other parties have been all over this and won’t let it happen.

Make surrender, not war

Hahaha, only kidding! Corbyn wasted the first televised debate by failing to take any of a number of huge, clearly signposted opportunities to demolish the Prime Minister. I mean, it is once again looking like I’m going to have to vote for him, but it’s hard to imagine a more strategically inept, argumentatively flaccid opposition leader.

Yes, he seems like a nice guy who cares about people and likes making and sharing jam. That’s good – I don’t want to undersell how good, because goodness in general is woefully absent from our politics these days – but it isn’t useful. Unflinchingly challenging lies when they’re made right in front of you is useful. Accepting that whether you want it to be or not, the centreground is where this election can be won or lost is useful. Being a bit like someone’s much-loved grandparent is not.

Labour will not lose this election because of their policies. That might sound contrary to a lot of the professional commentary at the moment, but I stand by it. If they lose this election, it will be because they have failed to take the fight to a Tory party that is so vulnerable that even a half-hearted thump would likely inflict a mortal wound on it and drive the polls in Labour’s favour. But for some reason, they seem reluctant to do that. And I can’t understand why.

But, as I said, on the basis of the above (e.g. Tories literally resorting to an Orwellian nightmare war on truth) and the below (uuuurgh), I am still probably going to vote Labour at this point. Forget Brexit. Forget tax rates. Forget the fact that it risks setting my own slow crawl towards financial stability back several years more. Because this is now a case of whatever is my best option for stopping our country becoming a shitter, poorer version of Trump’s America will get my vote. And unfortunately that means Corbyn. I just hope he wins a small majority and the whackier, more 70s student-event-hosted-by-Scargill policies get quickly dropped as unpassable.

Iiiiiiit’s… Jo Swinson’s Flying Circus

I am trying to not take this one personally. No sooner had I joined the Liberal Democrats than they switched to an innovative “lose as much credibility as possible” election strategy. First were the dishonest polling graphics. Maybe the sign of a suddenly fattened membership, with new joiners getting a bit carried away trying to be clever, I thought.

Then there was the strangely creepy presidential-style campaign, complete with police-state-esque re-education bus and awkward photo ops. A new party leader trying to catch up with the level of household recognition the competition have had several years to establish, maybe?

Along with this was a self-defeating refusal to work with anyone, the so-simplistic-it-fails position on Brexit… been burnt by coalitions, people feeling Labour’s position is either unclear or a bit mealy-mouthed, etc.

It all just looks a bit like a campaign that has been copy-pasted at random from the output of various focus groups. Does Jo Swinson need to be a household name, on the basis there is no chance of her actually becoming Prime Minister in two weeks time? Do the kind of people likely to vote Lib Dem voters want a US-style campaign? Are we never to see a coalition again, just because they did it once and buggered it up? And, most importantly, isn’t a unilateral withdrawal of Article 50 horribly undemocratic and going to really upset a lot of people?

To top it all off, it seems they’ve now embarked on a full-blown descent into the absurd; doctored emails, more misleadingly-designed campaign literature, and party members campaigning on the basis that it is okay to vote for them because they’ll never be in a position to carry out any of their manifesto promises anyway. They’ve somehow combined the worst aspects of the Tory campaign with the worst aspects of Labour’s godawful leadership model and then doused it all in very powerful hallucinogens.

All they needed to do was be not shit. By being fair and honest, sticking to the political centre, defending the NHS, and promising unequivocally to do whatever was necessary (including coalition) to ensure a 2nd referendum or customs union, they’d have picked up a lot of votes. Instead, I’m now actively discouraging people from voting for a party I’ve just recently paid money to join.

Centre voters have very few options at the moment, meaning they’re easily courted by anyone vaguely appealing. But the Lib Dems seem determined to make sure that isn’t them. Swinson’s campaign has been so bafflingly incompetent on every level that it almost seems intentional. At this point, I suspect they’ve turned a safe route to a best-ever result into a brutal drubbing that will sideline them for another decade.

So, in summary, I really hope the polls are all very wrong because if not, this country is going to be raped and pillaged in a frenzy of deregulation, privilege and lies. It might honestly be time to emigrate, because I absolutely do not want to be a part of what this is all becoming.