The tectonic plates of British politics are not quite moving, but are beginning to wobble. Brexit bestrides the political world like a colossus and like that mighty statue is quite capable of tipping gallons of burning pitch onto ships that are foolish enough to sail between its legs. Before we leave the EU, bloodied bruised and with third degree burns there will be many political deaths. At the moment Queen Theresa (Rees Mogg’s morning Gloriana) dominates the opinion polls. And Labour? The patient is in a coma. The death rattle is wheezing in its throat and the priest (Humanist of course) is ready to administer the last lefts. And the family sits round the bed hoping a favourable will reading . Poor Corbyn is like the Roadrunner who has ran over the cliff and still running on air. The worst poll ratings since the craft was invented. Although they would be more accurate if they studied sheep’s entrails. Unthinkably, a large percentage of Labour supporters actually think May is a better leader. Rumours are rife at Westminster that Corbyn knows that the game is up and after the May elections will bow out. People who should know better are predicting that someone sensible and electable like Keir Starmer will replace him. Utter bollocks. Labour is no longer a party that aspires to power but inspires the Swampies and Tamponistas who think it is enough to spend the day on social media screaming abuse at Tory and Blairite scum. Their problem is deciding who is worse. So they will get the gothic McDonnell or one of those well scrubbed harridans who think that a glottal stop is where you alight to get to Islington.
While Labour is haemorrhaging members, the Lib Dems are scooping them up. While Labour is losing by elections they are winning them. Whilst Labour has lost the City, donors and anyone with the brain structure more sophisticated than a marsupial, the donors are lining up for them. And in May there are the local and Scottish elections. I would be amazed if the Lib Dems didn’t scoop an extra hundred seats. Perhaps more. Ruth Davison will almost wipe Labour out and give Sturgeon a bloody nose.
So does this mean that I have looked at the future and seen that it is ginger? Not quite. I like Tim Farron. He’s like Jeremy Thorpe without the shagging. A very good campaigner. The trouble is that his party have always been a thoroughly dishonest shower. They’d offer missionaries to the cannibals for a cheap vote. The irony is that they may pick up the young people’s vote. Of course, they cynically fucked students over a few years ago. But now the young have seen their futures destroyed by the new hordes of Teenage Mutant Tories who, if they win a landslide at the next General election, will probably advocate the slaughter of the first born to reduce the deficit. Tim won’t be Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, but he will be a force to be reckoned with.
The trouble with this scenario is that Labour have a visceral hatred of the Lib Dems. You know the history, so I won’t bore you with it. But what alternative to they have? A friend of mine is a professor of Darwinian biology. We were talking about politics the other day. He smiled. ‘You do realise that the history of evolutionary survival rests on two important truths? Elitism and extinction’. Labour back benchers would be wise to take that advice to heart. If they don’t, a few might be sighted in Lochness. But nobody would believe it. Labour backbenchers were just folklore.
