You can come out now -

it’s all over.

We followed our plan and went to bed just after the exit polls, and then came down at three in the morning to watch the bulk of the excitement. It was a relief nationally to see labour get in, and it was also good to see the Lib Dems make some headway. Locally the Lib Dems defeated the incumbent Tory in a seat that has been Conservative since its inception in 1945. This was the biggest cheer of the evening for us. 

This is not a radical government, it is a chance to stop the rot and build for the future. It is a chance to put public service before personal gain, a chance to replace corruption with decency, and an opportunity to build houses, fund the NHS properly, and start repairing some of the damage to our infrastructure, such as education and the legal system. But to use a WW2 metaphor, a beachhead is not a victory.  There is a huge amount to do to achieve even modest ambitions. 

I live in the real world. Down the years I’ve been a student activist, a shop steward and a member of the Labour Party. When Parliament was prorogued by Boris Johnson I lay down in front of the buses outside Parliament with thousands of others. This time around I stuffed letterboxes for the Lib Dem’s locally and canvassed for Labour in London. In both cases the results made me happy. 

 You’re never too old to be part of the solution but in today’s world solutions are hard to come by. Everywhere else in Europe seems to be lurching towards the authoritarian right but we have a chance in Britain to do something better. 

July the 4th 2024 was not a perfect day but it was a start. Get behind it if you can.