Well there we are. After nearly five months of politicians
electioneering, we finally have a result.
And what a result!
Unbelievable! I have to tell you
I slept badly on Wednesday night. At
that point it seemed very likely that we were going to have some form of Labour
minority government, loosely supported by the SNP. A left leaning party, being pulled to the
left by an even more left leaning party.
A party opposed to austerity, in fact not just opposed to austerity but
anti-austerity! It was a forthcoming nightmare! A spend, spend, spend Ed
Miliband, being encouraged to spend even more by Nicola Sturgeon. Jesus - we would be in debt until all my
grandkids had retired!
Luckily for all of us, common sense prevailed in the ballot
box and all those (secret and embarrassed) Tory voters voted for the party they
trusted the most to give us five years of economic growth, no increase in taxes
and a general improvement in their standard of living.
I stayed up on Thursday night, and, like most of us,
couldn't believe the exit poll that the BBC published at 10.01 pm. By 4pm it was apparent that the exit poll was
largely accurate, and, much as I wanted to see Paddy Ashdown eat his hat, I
retired to bed feeling happier, safer and more contented than I had the night
before.
So, anyway, what's all this about anti-austerity? I don't get it. I wracked my brains to remember anything,
just one little thing that pointed to any form of austerity in the past five
years, and I could only come up with one.
The streetlights on the motorway nearby have been turned off every night
at 11pm, instead of being left on all night. What a good idea!
Everything else is the same as it was five years ago. No, I
stand corrected - my library is now open 13 hours a day, every day, seven days
a week. It used to be open for 8 hours, 6 days a week. Progress! No austerity there. My bins are still emptied
on alternative weeks (landfill, week 1, recycling week 2). I'm sure I can cope with 5 more years of
austerity. As long as it means that we don't have to keep borrowing more and
more money and then spend a fortune in interest charges. I received a letter last year from HMRC,
telling me that one quarter of my tax payments had been used to pay the
interest on the national debt. I'm sure
that government could have put it to better use.
I'll keep campaigning for cuts in our military/defence
spending (why is it we have to have nuclear weapons but that 180 countries,
including Spain and Italy don't have any?) but apart from that I'm relatively
happy. I realise Cameron has some formidable hurdles to overcome but he has my
full support.
