For the first eight years of my life, I had two grandmothers.
Geographically, and in just about every other way, they were polls apart. I was too young to understand whether or not they got on during those family occasions when we all got forced to drink from the cup, but I suspect not. Politeness, rather than warmth, would have guided their relations.
Politically, Granny England was left-wing in that slightly disconcerting ‘look at me: despite- my-privileged-life-I-am-a-woman-of-the-people way’; Granny Scotland, on the other hand, was right wing in that ‘genghis-khan-was-simply-misunderstood-and-what-we-really-need-is-Enoch-Powell-back’ way. As children, and probably somewhere in the middle, we rather enjoyed it all, but I don’t recall anyone ever arguing about it. From time to time, Granny Scotland would send us embarrassingly under-wrapped Empire Loyalist pamphlets through the post, but that was as far as it ever went. Both were kind, and both were patriots.
1968 and 1986 saw the ladies plucked to their respective valhallas and, in subconscious honour of both, or perhaps neither of them, I have at some point been a member of five different political parties, and have voted many different ways. As a former soldier, perhaps knowing a tiny bit of the cost involved in winning us that vote, I have never not done my democratic duty. Rain or shine, national, local or European, I have proudly walked into the Tillington Village Hall at 7.05 a.m on election day, and exercised my power, today included. Indeed, Paddy, my long-defunct old Glen of Imaal Terrier, once exercised her own democratic rights in the 1997 election, about two foot behind my little polling booth.
‘That’s her deposit gone,’ said the returning officer, without batting an eyelid.
Anyway, maybe like you, I used to love elections. Whatever the predicted outcome, I used to ask people round to have a drink or two, and watch the precious process. I loved John Snow with his wavy arms, and some Dimbleby or other droning on about the privilege of it all. I loved that you could see from the candidates faces as they climbed onto the stage who had won and who hadn’t. And most of all, I loved that, whatever the outcome, the sun would rise again the following morning, and life would change surprisingly little.
This year, of course, I have been able to make a far more nuanced choice than usual thanks to the elevated debate on social media and, indeed, among the politicians themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the vast majority of the 3300 or so candidates standing today actively want to make the world a better place. Equally, the old adage about a lie being half way round the world before the truth has got his boots on has never been so true: this election celebrates both a post-truth world, and the curious sight of people who would never say boo to a metaphorical goose’s face, dishing out ‘scumbag’ insults in the wobbly hope that they are thus anonymised. It’s called ‘sharing’, by the way. It’s what you do when you’ve forgotten how to think for yourself.
I write this before knowing the outcome, but I do know this: Mark Zuckerberg, you have one hell of a lot to answer for.
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