Electile Dysfunction
What happens to the pencils? Yes, those short stubby things with which we electorally mark our Twitter (previously known as X) against the name of whichever duplicitous candidate for Parliament takes our fancy. No hanging chads or voting machines for us, we’re old school; HB or not HB. But where do they go afterwards? Are they single use, thrown in the bin, never used again - and if so, should we get upset and paint everything orange, like those idiots at Stonehenge the other day? Will some modern artist create the world’s largest manifestation of voting rebellion in Tate Modern, glueing a million small pencils together to make a huge middle finger? Is there a vast building, maybe in Milton Keynes, The Centre for Electoral Technology, where they are lovingly stored between elections, sharpened weekly to a point of democratic perfection?
I was pondering this important topic on the way to vote on Thursday. I live a mile outside the village, where a Polling Station pops up every time there is an outbreak of democracy, about once every five years, not counting local elections and exotics like ‘Police and Crime Commissioners’. (The Presiding Officer looked very glum at that one – ‘I’ve been here seven hours, and so far only twelve people have voted’, he said). This time, I arrived in the anointed place, that great portal of democracy known as The Village Hall.
The same chap was in charge this week, and told me brightly that trade had been brisk; thirty-five people had already been through at ten in the morning. In three hours! So many! He and his assistant (who turned out to be his wife) wanted to chat, showed me the home-made cakes they had brought with them, and offered a boiled sweet. Aka candy. I noticed these were all white, presumably to avoid any risk of accidentally revealing my voting intention if I chose a green or blue or red one. That would be anti-democratic; a secret ballot, ruined by not-so secret confectionery.
The village has about a hundred houses, mostly old and stone, and its hall used to be the school. It’s a small, huddling Victorian building, where you can imagine generations of poorly-clad urchins sitting cross-legged on the rather splintery wooden floor, reciting their five times table. The school closed in the ‘70s due to a lack of customers; then the road to Newcastle was upgraded and families poured in. There are now more kids living there than when the school was open, but it is no more. So much for strategic planning.
The hall itself was the focus of extreme democratic passions a few years back. The place was crumbling, so cold and damp that it cost more to heat Senior Citizens’ fitness classes than they produced in fees, and it was still perishing cold. Then a property developer came along with an intriguing proposal. He offered to buy the village pub, build a new hall next to it, and lease it to the community for a peppercorn rent. So the village would get a new, modern building, effectively free. In return, he would buy the village hall/school and turn it into a house. Presumably with better heating.
This idea was so sensible that half the village was immediately agin’ it. Neighbour accused neighbour. Friendships went cold. One particular local took it upon herself to fight what she regarded as the good fight to stop it. Her chosen tactic? Persuasion? Rhetoric? Closely-reasoned argument?
Er, no. This is the English countryside. Libel.
The first I knew of this was when I heard the click of my letterbox and the sound of a car driving away. The hand-delivered missive was not so much a letter, more an outpouring of bile; four pages in which it was alleged that the chairman of the village hall committee was in the pocket of said developer. Corrupt. Biased, receiving kickbacks. That sort of thing. No evidence was adduced to support this; the author merely affirmed it. Clearly a natural politician. I was surprised she did not place the allegations on the side of a bus.
So I called her and went into journalist mode, asking innocent questions about the allegations. No, it turned out, she did not have any evidence, still less proof; she just knew it. I gently pointed out that to accuse someone of corruption could be defamatory; to print that out and push it through every letterbox in the village constitutes ‘publishing’ the libel; and that unless she could absolutely prove what she said (which she clearly could not), then under British defamation law she would be found guilty, if the chairman decided to sue. And libel penalties don’t come cheap.
She went quiet - but half the village remained furious, in that peculiarly British thing where you’re angry but can never quite bring yourself to say so. Instead, people go ‘tsk’ and roll their eyes. No historical schism has ever been pursued with such vehemently passive aggression.
This vital topic then turned nuclear when the village hall committee came up for re-election. Instead of struggling to get candidates, most of the village decided to stand. And then, on the morning of the vote, half of us pulled out, causing much giggling - a case of an exit troll. You think General Elections are vicious? They have nothing on village hall politics.
The developer eventually decided not to waste his time arguing with locals who hated something before they considered the facts. So the village hall is still cold and damp. Which is why the Presiding Officer and his wife were wearing coats, indoors. In July.
And now our election is over, and we have a new Prime Minister, the sixth in a few years. Rishi Sunak immediately conceded, and made a gracious speech in which he praised his successor, instead of denying the result and calling for a baying crowd. Just fancy. He’s probably arriving in Santa Monica about now.
Now it’s France’s turn, where they vote again tomorrow. When the extreme right triumphed in the first round last week, everyone else got together and decided to copy my village’s example; they pulled out half the rival candidates. It’s gerrymandering really, an act of Gallic gall, attempting to influence the outcome with rapier-like precision. Presumably an épée. Macron will be hoping this particular sword is mightier than le Pen.
And soon it will be America’s turn. Ah yes. Umm. Ahem. I wonder if they are debating the lessons of the British and French elections in the White House. Maybe not; that word is probably banned there at the moment.
Anyway, as politics dominated the headlines, there was an unequivocally bright piece of news this week, in a rather different kind of race. The astonishingly talented, modest and likable Mark Cavendish beat Eddy Merckx’s record for the most stage wins in the Tour de France. After he brought his kids onto the podium to celebrate with him, he said this:
You sprint and you go as hard as you can ‘til you get to the finish line. And maybe your life changes, if you cross that line first. Maybe it doesn’t if you don’t; that’s the nature of this race and what makes it so beautiful.
What a perfect description of democracy.
Except for one slight snag. Keir Starmer’s ‘biggest landslide in British electoral history’ was achieved with an almost identical share of the vote to that which caused a catastrophe for Jeremy Corbyn five years ago. This time, Labour won 34% of the votes cast … and 64% of the seats. Representative democracy, anyone?
Like those erstwhile urchins, I’ll have to do some sums to figure that one out. Pass me a pencil.