It's funny, but for ages I've been under the misapprehension that Britain is a democracy. I suppose I've concluded this from our electoral system. The parties present their manifestos to the nation, and after we've studied these* and compared Mrs May to Beardy Comrade Corbyn, Mr Squeaky from the Liberal Democrats, the balding racist from UKIP and that awful, pixie-haired, baggy-breasted woman from the Green Armpit Party who wants us all to have wire wool haircuts, hairy toes, no wi-fi and to all have to go to work on the back of a moose, we vote. Whoever gets the most votes, and the most seats, is judged to be victorious.
*(At least, those that can be bothered to ...)
Democracy works in many other ways as well. If six in a group of eleven fancy a pizza, and the remaining five a burger, we head to Frankie and Benny's and not Maccy D's. Provided those with the responsibility of casting their votes know what they are doing with them, it all seems very fair and clear-cut to me.
I do NOT want the Labour party to win this election, as anyone with a job and savings will simply get squeezed until they bleed, then squeezed some more, then ordered by men in brown coats to give away all our houses and otherworldly goods to people whose idea of first-class travel involves a rubber dingy followed by the underside of the Eurostar. And if we protest, refuse or so much as raise our hands to say "errm, actually …", we get labelled with lots of things about us that are not true from people who have time to do such things in lieu of having any meaningful full-time employment.
However, if enough of the general, sensible adult population fails to come out and cast enough votes to stop the millennials from having their way and allowing a man who openly hates our own armed forces into Downing Street, I shall accept the decision, albeit in bad grace, and then move to a country with some common sense.
If I were to approach my local council for funds to start a theatre group, they would turn me away, arguing I was too middle-class and not apologetic enough about the human rights record of countries where they host Formula One races. The money would go instead to someone who promises to charge a fortune for a (recycled) cup of lukewarm fair trade herbal tea and a commitment to employ at least three dolphins.
Now, if the majority isn't really affected by a minority's aspirations, then it doesn't really matter that much and if we can do a little bit to help out, then fine, it must be part of living in a caring society, I suppose. But when a minority wants, no, demands something that is deeply offensive to majority, it should simply be told in no uncertain terms, to bugger off.
But what matters more to the country is surely the quality of Mr Corbyn’s ideas. And while he has been accepted by many as a nice, if naïve, man who just wants planning permission to build a bit of Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, the reality is quite different. The man is an economic dinosaur. Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit would be a better choice to run the economy. Corbyn favours printing money to finance increased expenditure – an idea that even sent poor Zimbabwe back to the stone age.
Corbyn paints himself as a progressive figure, but one glance at this manifesto and you see he's about as progressive as Pink Floyd. Maybe in the sense that he sees the future and wants to help all Britons to enjoy its fruits, but No: he is a nostalgia addict. And not in a 1990's Britpop way.
It’s like finding out your old geography teacher just got a new job. The one you half remember, and then only because of that time he cried because some kid pissed in his slippers on the school camping trip. If Jeremy Corbyn is the limit of our political imagination then we are well and truly stuffed. He might well be a nice bloke, but the Labour Party have long been enemies of the kind of mass working class self-organisation that is needed if there is to be any meaningful change in our lives.
As a single, white, heterosexual male under the age of 40 with aspirations of home ownership [i.e; the very people that actually FOUNDED the Labour party] and with no wife, mortgage, kids or car, I ought to be at least SOMEWHERE near top of their agenda. But now it seems that I'm the last person on earth who the Labour party THEMSELVES even actually WANTS voting for them, as demographically speaking, I'm just simply not interesting enough for them any more.
It's true that one does tend to get naturally more conservative as you get older as you have gained more in life and therefore have more to lose, but it's a desperate sign of how much ground we have lost at the centre of British politics that Corbyn is considered radical at all.
By promising the return of British Railways, powerful trade unions and even the coal mines, he offers a return to the Seventies when he imagines Britain was happier and more equal, but I suspect those who struggled to bury their loved ones or climbed through piles of rubbish during the Winter of Discontent probably remember it less fondly. My parents certainly do. We don't live in an age where socialism works anymore. We now have social media, of course, which is now one of the most powerful political tools this generation has ever known, but it started out as just a whizzier version of Friends Reunited.
But socialism doesn’t work anymore because it no longer reflects current human nature. This unnatural state of existence, by the way, is what makes socialism nothing more than an ideology – it doesn’t reflect what’s real, it only reflects what’s imagined. And in Corbyn's imagination, we'd all have no choice but to drop our trousers and surrender ourselves to the Borg. Turn ourselves over to the Empire. Worship His Divine Shadow. Give our consent to the Monks.
Corbyn's aims are quite clear. He wants to lead a Revolutionary Socialist Party of Great Britain which will one day gain power when the established order has collapsed. The one thing he does not want is a democratically elected Labour Government. He wouldn't know what to do with it. The elder voters of Britain therefore have a duty to save the millennial generation, who have never lived through a Winter of Discontent, from themselves before they realise that whilst socialism may seem a great idea, it only works until you run out of someone else's money. And because all the people with any money, along with ambitions, aspirations and desire will have long since buggered off, once again it will be down to those with a job and nothing else to foot the bill.
Yours truly, in other words.
And before anyone asks, I'm still holding out hope for a Monster Raving Loony Party Candidate on my ballot paper on June 8th. Don't forget, it was their idea for passports for pets.
Even Jeremy Corbyn probably never thought of that.