Honestly. I’m quite literally counting the hours until I can vote in the general election and then sit back and watch the results come in.
It’s been a long 14 years of chaos and mismanagement under a series of weak and ineffectual Tory governments - despite their sometimes massive Commons majorities - and in the closing days of the campaign, with their dying breath, they criticise Kier Starmer for wanting to carve out some time on Friday evenings to be with his family.
Let’s set aside Boris Johnson literally parting while we were all under lockdown. Or his defence secretary going on holiday while the evacuation of Kabul was descending into farce. Starmer is saying he wants to ensure his family don’t suffer because of his job and, where possible, he’ll have dinner with them each Friday evening.
He will be living above his office, in 10 Downing Street. So the Tory howls of “What if there’s a crisis after 6pm on a Friday?” ignore the fact that the PM is probably the best connected person in the country. Instantly contactable, always kept in the loop.
But it also points at a certain disdain for anyone not glorifying the broken long working hours culture that pervades Conservative circles. Long hours somehow equates to being a professional. Whereas working your allotted hours, working part-time, or working with flexible arrangements in plane: quelle horreur!
I’m planning to stay up overnight on Thursday night, Friday morning. I want to see the looks on their faces as they realise they’ve lost badly and to see the chief apologists for the nasty culture war lose their seats live on TV.
And yes, I’ll have the champagne on ice on the off chance Rishi Sunak loses his own seat.
