POLITICS | THE WRITER'S LIFE
Image from B3ta
The supreme leader, Kim-Jong May and the Tories' election campaign, was akin to watching a video of someone lighting their own fart, then ending up in hospital. Or a great day out at the seaside, marred by sand in the vagina. What was I saying about not politicising this blog?
I have never been so invigorated or involved with a general election as I was this one, and it's reaffirmed my faith in humanity. After this election, I'm starting to feel I love my country again. One of my common chants when I was shouting from the left was, I voted Labour, because I'm proud to be British. A collective veil has been lifted and the British public have protested at having their intelligence insulted.
This was an election called by the Supreme Leader's ego, so confident was she that the country needed her “strong and stable” leadership, a mantra which will be forever ridiculed and satirised. She panicked: She was shitting it about Brexit, her predecessor's epic fail of a gamble. So she called a snap election in the arrogant misguided belief that she'd win a landslide majority, allowing her to bumble through her Brexit no-plan unchallenged. I still suspect that she planned to pursue a cowardly “hard Brexit”, almost completely severing ties with the EU, so that the UK became an annexe of Trump's capitalist US. Then, with no minimum wage, those who sought to exploit a workforce would be given tax breaks by UK PLC.
And she might have got away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling kids. The figures are blurry but there is no doubt that the mobilisation of young voters played a big part in May's implosion. But the other starring role was Corbyn's man of the people. I said some time ago that (like many others), I couldn't vote Labour because I couldn't see Corbyn as Prime Minister. But then I realised I was working with my conditioning of what a politician was. So what I saw in Jeremy Corbyn wasn't a politician. Realising that was a good thing was the light bulb moment for me.
Now I predict that the Conservatives will completely collapse. The people have seen through a woman who won't even dirty her eyes by looking at them. Her own party is in turmoil and there'll be leadership challenges. Even if there are none, they are a battered and bruised after-party mess. She is weak and unstable, and she is unfit to lead a country into all that faces us over the coming years and months. The marriage of convenience to the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, climate-denying DUP will only cement the newly switched-on public's opinion that this is a party in trouble, willing to do anything to cling on to power.
Corbyn is planning to scupper May's Queen's Speech: I wish him luck. He is becoming known as an unconventional politician and if that's modernisation of our archaic system, he can only be a good thing. I predict the wicked witch being gone by Autumn and then another general election. Hopefully the voters will be sufficiently invigorated by the last one that they'll get out and vote again in similar numbers. I can't see the Conservatives' campaigns team coming up with anything to slow the decline, and Labour already have a new momentum. I predict that we will see a Labour Prime minister in 10 Downing Street by October. And Corbyn is unassailable as leader within his own party now. Far better to have Obi-Wan Kenobi at No.10 than Emperor Palpatine.
The next prime minister is going to have their work cut out. I'm confident Jeremy Corbyn is the best man to give the most to the many, while still placating the remaining few. It's too early to call Brexit and there are scenarios where a second referendum is called. Provided the public isn't sick of voting, perhaps the national mood swing and the realisation that Brexit was sold on a lie, might alter the balance. But if Brexit does go ahead, Corbyn will ensure the best deal for all. And the other 27 states are itching to maul Darth Sidious. Everything can change, suddenly and forever. The coming weeks and months will be the next stage in the turmoil this country's suffered for over a year now. The public are getting bored of it, but they're up for it: Roughly translated, 'Tories Out!' I dread to think what Brenda from Bristol is thinking. But the UK's shift to the left is a trend we've been seeing in Europe since Trump's election. Recent politics has been some of the most explosive in history. The world still stands at a pivotal point, but it looks like it's starting to lean to the left again.
Image from B3ta
Funnily enough, a pivotal point for mankind is one of the many subjects touched upon in a book I've been writing. I may have mentioned it: It's called Cyrus Song.
I am literally in the final few days of writing the first draft, before sending the manuscript out to test readers. It's still looking good for October publication and a lot of people have said how much they're looking forward to reading it. All I can add to everything I've already said, is that I've been banging on about it so much, it has to be bloody good or I'll look like a twunt.
I met with two of my younger fans yesterday, when we spent one of our regular days together in Milton Keynes. Despite my levels of anxiety sometimes preventing me even from leaving home, Sundays with my kids are a well-rehearsed known quantity. Once I've smoked a joint to combat the anxiety, the day breaks down into manageable pleasant stages: I leave my box of a studio, perched on top of a coffee shop, walk to my local train station, past the workhouse where George Orwell lived for a while, and a fountain once sketched by Turner. A train via the Bowie lands of Bromley and Brixton, then past Battersea Power Station and into Victoria. Next, the old queen's line (I associate it more with her namesake daughter: A proper feckin' rebel) to Euston, and onto a Virgin Pendolino via Bletchley Park to Milton Keynes, with it's herd of concrete cattle by Liz Leyh (Canadian artist). Why the fuck wouldn't I want to put myself through all that? If it wasn't to meet my kids at the other end, anxiety would stop me.
One side effect of constant paranoia (I find), is that you can get a mental vibe from a place. Although London and Milton Keynes have never been hostile, yesterday I felt a greater awareness of people to those around them. A 'vibe' is a difficult thing to enunciate, but it was a safe one yesterday.
The kids are really excited about Cyrus Song, mostly because I gave them roles as extras in the book. It's a book for everyone, as people will start to find out when anyone reads it. I only need a few people to do that before I'm confident that word of mouth will kick-start the rest. For that reason, and for reasons of royalties, I will almost certainly self-publish the first edition. Thereafter, it depends who might pick it up, or who I send copies to. But like all of my writing, this book isn't about making money, nice though that would be. This book in particular is the work of mine I'd like people to read, so that they can see what I can do. It's a book with many messages and one which people could gain a lot from. I've almost written it, so it's almost out there. Once it is, anyone and everyone can read it. That's why I write: So that I'm out there.
If things go to schedule, I'll have time to write a few short stories for the free-to-read markets to get myself out there too, while I edit the book. I have about half a dozen planned: Some more humorous sci-fi, a tale from The Unfinished Literary Agency, and a nasty, following on loosely from Helvetica Haus. The latter, and two of the former, are in The Perpetuity of Memory. There's also a scene in another story in the anthology, where Bono disappears up his own arse at a concert, a bit like Theresa May just did on the international stage.
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