Hmmm, what is this? I was determined not to blog about the election but due to er "time constraints" this weekend (I am spending all Sunday doing a running course in London!) I am somewhat lacking in other ideas this week...forgive me.
Rather than devote my blog to the frankly disappointing (but not surprising) events of the last 48 hours I will instead turn the clock back some 13 years *makes noises and actions they used to do in Wayne's World to signify time travel*
In 1997 I was 20 and halfway through my degree at APU, Cambridge (now called Anglia Ruskin University, oooh get you!) and able to vote in my first ever real grown up general election. This was the time of 'New Labour' and of course the height of Brit Pop, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the two went hand in hand as you saw Noel Gallagher at Number Ten fraternizing with Mr Blair. As a student voting Labour was as expected as experimenting with mind expanding drugs, shopping at Oxfam, skipping lectures, existing on Pot Noodles and toast and sporting tie dye. In fact, it was probably illegal to vote anything else if you were a student. For the record I wasn't pretending to be a New Labour supporter just to stick two fingers up at my middle class background, I have been raised to be a bit of a lefty (with slight support for the SDP as was, all those years ago). My parents read The Guardian don't you know! and although I don't recall my parents being overtly anti-Thatcher I also knew that they did not like or support her...
Oops, going off on a slight tangent here...I was reminded last night whilst watching Channel Four's rather marvellous alternative election evening (love love love Charlie Brooker, can't he be PM?) and they had some voxpops from comedians etc on there. One of whom was recalling how as a child he thought that voting was private and not something that you broadcast around who you voted for. I think that I too was brought up this way and to this day there are probably only a few close friends I would ask outright who they voted for. I suppose I can probably guess their allegiances anyway and if any of them are closet Tory they can consider themselves off the Christmas card list (although I have a sneaky suspicion my husband voted for them...fuming...). Yes I suppose I have always thought that asking people that was akin to asking them their wage packet, anyway, back to 1997... just to put you in the picture I am very thin (too thin) and have hair which is an interesting shade of red/orange before it was made fashionable by Florence Welch, a penchant for 2nd hand clothes, sultanas and wearing too much lipstick. I have a serious (and God was he serious!) boyfriend called Paul and I am house sharing with four girls plus one of their insufferable boyfriends.
I would like to say that I bothered to stay up all night in the SU Bar knocking back pints of Fosters as the results rolled in to experience the jubilation first hand of the new and exciting government, but like a loser I went to bed instead. However, on waking and tuning into Radio One I was ecstatic and overjoyed at the news of Blair's victory and elated and proud that I had made a difference. I remember donning my Union Jack "Brit Babe" t-shirt especially! (This may've been the era of New Labour but it was also the unfortunate era when the Spice Girls influenced high street fashion!). We all felt extremely optimistic and that we had played a part. For me this was the first Labour government I could remember. We generally believed, like the D:Ream song adopted for the campaign, that things could only get better. Well did they? hmmm not in the long term...
Years later, Yes I am still a "Lefty" but I have lost faith in So called New Labour along the way. They did not deliver what we hoped and expected. Thankfully I missed out on tuition fees at University. There is no true right or left anymore and that's what has made the nation so confused at who and what to vote for. I did my homework for the election this time but still vacillated between my old Labour roots and the Lib Dems. I am glad that I did stick by my Lefty guns though and didn't vote Lib Dem as it would appear(at time of writing) that a vote for Clegg is going to go to ol' shiny chops anyway.
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