So, the election has been and gone. We have a new prime minister and government and, apparently, the country has a new direction.
You have undoubtedly heard many thoughts about how Farage and Reform took the votes away from the Tories, how the SNP got humiliated, and how unjust the first-past-the-post electoral system is, especially for smaller parties.
Now that the dust has settled, I would like to go through a few things that jumped out at me.
The first thing is how incredibly sensible the usually loony left has been. We heard nothing from our new PM and his band of merry men about LGBTQ+ issues, Gaza, or the “institutionalised racism “that haunts the UK’s BAME community.
Manly Sir Kier has dropped all talk of that and is committed to fixing the cost of living crisis, our NHS, and building our infrastructure.
I say “manly” because we have been spared the pink-haired, wide-eyed cat lady shrieking about injustices and there has been little from race baiters like Ash Sarkar or Khende Andrews about how this and that negatively affects minorities.
Instead, we have seen the likes of Nigel Farage being interviewed in the pub with a pint in front of him. It also seems to be getting talked up that there are a number of armed forces veterans now in the commons.
My own new MP, Gregor Poynton, come across as a good, honest bloke when I briefly met him and even our new Foreign secretary, David Lammy, has been reaching out to the Trump camp in the USA.
Speaking of BAME communities, is it just me who has noticed the lack of diversity in the new cabinet? I can count on one hand how many non-Whites there are and still have fingers left to type this out. It’s incredible when you think that the Labour Party has been instrumental in pushing diversity quotas and endlessly banging the drum for minorities. The only identity politic “first” they can point to is the first woman to be chancellor of the exchequer.
In fact, Labour is the party that has never had anything but a straight white man as leader. It certainly looks like it’s diversity for thee but not for me with Starmer and co.
Next, I had noted that Gavin Newlands, the SNP MP for Erskine, had lost his seat. This was of no surprise to me as most of the locals couldn’t stand him, being especially arrogant to them at a public meeting last year regarding the local hotel being used to home illegal immigrants.
Lastly, although it may not seem overly significant, I noticed the Reform candidate came third with 7.8% of the vote which was above the average vote share for them in Scotland. This could have something to do with the locals last year becoming more engaged in the political system and becoming aware of right-leaning parties showing that local activism does indeed work.
Let’s see how this pans out.
