Election madness

Like a Dickensian nightmare on acid, any trip to High Wycombe is one to be endured, suffered and squirmed through until the agony subsides in the form of a taxi journey sped by screamed encouragement at the driver. Shopping trolleys in canals is an urban cliché, but there they’ve made it a trademark. Unfortunately it’s where my UK office is based so occasionally I’m forced to visit it, with all the enthusiasm of a teenager breaking from a weekend of masturbation and Xbox to return to a particularly strict military school.

This was the last of my trips in the UK and it was with some relief that I landed back in Zurich, met as ever by the cold, dead eyes of the immigration official. In the UK at least they show a degree of hopeful enthusiasm that they might get to turn away some desperate asylum seeker fleeing certain death, break up a family or two or even better, witness the armed police riddle the skull of a terrorist with blunt ammunition. I get the impression that I could walk up to their Swiss equivalents with frankfurters strapped round my waist, dripping blood from a freshly cut palm onto a copy of the Koran and they wouldn’t give one solitary shit. Still, at least you get out quickly.

I was glad to be back in the UK while the election was announced. It reminded me what a horrible time all those people left behind are in for until May 6th. I’m not politically apathetic, but the squealed posturing and vacant, half begged promises are enough to make you want to vomit up your own lungs. Prime Minister’s questions, the weekly event in the House of Commons where the parties are supposed to discuss matters of importance to the country, are normally akin to a rowdy inner city school on the last day of term, but the nearer you get to an election the more they start to bear a startling resemblance to the gang rapes you see performed by packs of chimps on nature programmes. It would not surprise me if we eventually see the leader of the opposition start openly defecating and smearing his bare chest while the Prime Minister stands on the benches screaming encouragement for his party to set fire to the Houses of Parliament and attack with their teeth and hands all who stand in their way.

Of course whenever you have the degree of tribalism that you find in politics, things are going to get ugly at points, but it’s the childish, snideyness that will eventually drive me to walking into a voting booth and publicly using my vote as a suppository. At the last break of parliament, after the date of the election had been announced, there were hundreds of shouts of ‘goodbye’, said in a mocked threat that was supposed to suggest the other side had no chance of winning (which they don’t, but it’s not really the point). They probably followed this with giggles and shrill screams of delight as they skipped back to their playgrounds. These are the people who are supposed to lead and shape the country, the social elite. They act like a bunch of hyperactive schoolboys with severe learning disabilities.

I prefer the Australian parliament, where it is not uncommon to hear things like:

“He’s a Grade A arsehole”
“Fucking animals”
“He will be lucky to get a job cleaning shithouses if I ever become Prime Minister.”

I’m not making this up, these are actual quotes.

http://www.ausculture.com/2004/08/30/paul_j_keatings/

This is after all, from a country whose current Prime Minister got caught going into a strip club, and his approval rating went up. Now that’s the sort of politics I want to be involved with.