It's both fun and sickening watching the end in real time, via journalists' Twitter feeds. Niall Paterson (a Sky hack and therefore a hack of the lowest kind) is literally peeking through the curtains at people changing into suits ready for an announcement, inbetween spinning for the Tories. It reminds me of an age ago, glued to the TV while Ceaucesçu was jeered, hounded out and eventually shot. There's no dignity afforded to the vanquished: the Sun-spoiled mob must have blood and rolling news channels must be filled. Not now, and not in the future - Cameron will have his turn.
What must the atmosphere be like in Downing Street. Government phones are switched off, party ones ignored. Eye contact is evaded, photos and desk junk hurled into cardboard boxes like Merrill Lynch bankers on their last day. Civil servants disappear, or become suddenly insolent and high-handed. Old rivalries are buried or, perhaps, flare up as blame is assigned. Less and less, I guess, is being said as a wave of miserable realisation breaks. This really is it. 13 years of highs and lows gone. What awaits those in the inner circle? They live for politics, high and low, principled and shabby. No more limos, civil servants, institutional dinners, urgent texts, but also no more placating bullshitters, sycophants and dependents, toadying to the undeservedly powerful. For some, a further lifetime of corruption as PR firms, corporate boards and lobbyists beckon, but they know that truly, they represent the past. Certainly opposition holds no joys - ex-governments spend the first year in opposition licking wounds, not energising themselves for the fight. What remains is the rediscovery -welcome or not - of real life. Taking buses, learning to e-mail, looking for work, talking to constituents, starting from the bottom again.
I genuinely hope that, liberated from the shackles of power he voluntarily assumed, Brown can leave politics to do great things. Neal said last week that he'd have loved to see Brown stop in the middle of the TV debates and announce 'Sod this. You two bicker. I'm off to run the IMF'. Now's his chance.
I remember 1997. Despite already hating Blair and distrusting Brown, I felt the hope, the sheer optimism that came with new faces, fresh ideas, honesty and openness (yes, I know, the irony is overwhelming). I'm so sad that so much talent was wasted in petty politics, authoritarianism, hopeless fawning to power (the US, money and celebrity, principally). Idealism ebbed away so quickly as those in power realised that power itself is not an end, yet failed to retain their ideals, failed to remain daring and radical (as the syndicalists predicted in the 1920s).
There's no such feeling today, even in Tory ranks. Hardcore Tories are simply relieved that their natural right to rule has been (partially): like the Republicans, they're democrats only when they've won. Old ideas are flooding back, whether it's uncaring free marketeering (yes, the same idea that's just bankrupted the country) or hunting.
It feels like the end of the 1930s. A tired, gloomy, listless fag-end period awaits. Except for me. I'm going to Norway, even if I have to lick toilets clean for a living.
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