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Showing posts with label Election fatigue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election fatigue. Show all posts

Thursday, 5 December 2019

Election fatigue

A week out from polling day and my motivation has plunged. Perhaps this is the low point of the campaign. Even Swinson's outrageous defence of giving the vote to 16 year-olds to game any second referendum just left me filled with contempt rather than anger. We're back to a binary contest, after those exhilarating weeks during which four parties each held some 20% of the vote, when Swinson dreamt of standing on the doorstep of Number 10 and Nigel imagined his drive to the Palace.

We've managed to get past the danger of Trump endorsing anyone in the election; he's flown away in a fit of pique that a playground gang of other NATO leaders were caught laughing at him. I really can't knock Trumpy, despite his manifold failings; Hillary would have been far, far, worse - and the US would have been mired in another trillion dollar war by now if Clinton had been in the White House, with a stream of transport aircraft bringing the coffins home. Better Trump, and families having their husbands and fathers home alive at Christmas.

Macron's desperation came through. He can only hold France together if everyone else continues to pay for it. His thrust to take greater control of the German treasury has foundered, and his defence strategy is centred on getting money, including NATO money, from all of the other EU26 to invest in French defence industries. Islamist terrorism is forcing his internal security to the limits, and the Gilets Jaunes are a continued irritant. No wonder he will be willing to use a fight over French access to UK fishing waters after Brexit (if the Conservatives win) to try to win back his collapsing popular support.

I'm hoping for a Conservative fireworks strategy - that we've been keeping the brightest bursts, the loudest bangs and the greatest impact fireworks in the box until last, to give a crescendo display over the next seven days. Our social media presence has also been risibly poor to date - our supply of talented 17 year-old video makers seems poorer than Momentum's.

One of the highlights of my social media week has been the piss-taking of the Guardian under the #TrollingtheGuardian tag. The newspaper's banning of a parody account on Twitter on copyright grounds has unleashed an amusing flood of pisstaking - leading to what one observer has termed ironic confusion, with the Guardian's real straplines reading like the Onion and the parodies having the flavour of authenticity.  Hey ho.