Today I'm going off message.
Yesterday we voted in a General Election. Every eligible citizen was entitled to vote and have their say in who governed our country for the next five years. All the political parties and their candidates had several weeks (far too many for some people!) to put across their policies and convince voters to back their plans and visions for our country.
This morning I woke up to find that the country had rejected the policies, vision and potential leadership of the Labour Party and voted to return a Conservative majority. Such is democracy.
However, Twitter appears to have gone into meltdown. People are reporting a morning in tears, threatening to leave the country, mourning the death of the NHS. Apparently the Apocalypse and Doomsday are upon us...
I'm baffled as to the seeming strength of these reactions. A coalition of Conservative and Liberal Democrats have been running our country for the past five years and, to be honest, it's been more Conservative government than coalition. The country hasn't fallen apart, we're all still here. Some people have done well under that government and some have done less well. That's true whichever party is running the country. Some people did very well under the Tony Blair Labour governments and some did less well. There wasn't a rosy Labour government that made life wonderful for all and this new Conservative government won't make things all good or all bad.
We need some perspective. I understand that if you are a supporter of the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats then you are disappointed with the result. I get that. But to suggest that the very fabric of society is tearing apart and we are all going to Hell in a handcart is nonsense. Some things will get better, some will stay the same and some many get worse. But think about it. We had the opportunity to have our say yesterday, to say which direction we wanted the country to take over the next five years. Enough people wanted what the Conservative Party offered to get more Conservative MPs than Labour ones. That's the reality. What the Labour Party offered was not credible, not believable or not what the majority of the people wanted so they need to go away and think again.
The country, our country will be fine. We're not about to drop off the edge of the world so let's stop panicking. If you don't like the result then maybe you need to work for a change. If enough people do that then in five years time things may be different.
Remember, what we've just done is awesome; we voted for the government of our country. In many parts of the world that's not possible. We may not all like the result we get but it wasn't forced on us, our views weren't ignored and no-one rigged the vote in their favour.
No comments:
Post a Comment