This time last year I had finished my exams and was quickly realising
that I didn’t really know the first thing about Africa (or medicine), and I was
feeling excited about starting my elective in Tanzania.
This time this year I have finished my exams and am quickly
realising that I don’t really know the first thing about medicine (or Africa), and
I am feeling intensely glum about the
future.
My life of late has been dull in the extreme: I’ve done a bit of revision
and sat a few exams and I have been slowly abusing my body with junk food and
terrible sleep hygiene for a long time. So I’ve looked forward to finishing
the final set of my extended student career. I anticipated spending the time afterwards reading things for
interest not exams, maybe bloviating some more on the internet, reacquainting myself
with ignored friends and family, and re-engaging in general. I was looking forward to
beginning life and work in Manchester as an FY1 doctor for the long suffering NHS.
Alas, any joy gained from finishing my medical finals on
Thursday was violently annihilated by the election results a few hours later.
The exit poll was worse than all the previous polls, and the result worse even than
that. We have voted for another 5 years of conservative government, except
now it will be unmitigated by Liberal Democrat presence. I am concerned that this country is becoming
unkind and insular and selfish and unpleasant, that the people in it are seemingly
unconcerned about the healthcare
system, about the poor, about immigrants, about welfare, about human
rights, about food banks, inequality, about relations with Europe, about big corporations holding governments to ransom.
But smallest of victories: Nigel Farage, and Paul Nuttall
and 619 other UKIP failed to win seats, despite some 3.88million UKIP votes. Nearly
4 million adult human beings decided voting UKIP was a good idea.
It’s cruel that the Tory’s unexpected success has benefited
so much from the surge of their ideological opponents in the SNP. It seems that
fear of an SNP-Lab coalition dissuaded enough labour voters, whereas hatred for
the ruling Tories England caused an SNP whitewash in Scotland.
It’s tempting to blame our electoral system; under
proportional representation the parliament would look significantly different:
| Party | Actual result | P.R. | Difference |
| Conservatives | 331 | 242 | -89 |
| Labour | 232 | 199 | -33 |
| Lib Dem | 8 | 51 | 43 |
| SNP | 56 | 31 | -25 |
| Ukip | 1 | 82 | 81 |
| Green | 1 | 24 | 23 |
In my simplification to consider coalition governments:
“LEFT” = LAB(232) + LD(8) + SNP(56) + GREEN(1) = 297 (vs 305 PR)
“RIGHT” = TORY (331) + UKIP(1) = 332 (vs 324 PR)
(Apologies for ignoring all of the smaller and welsh/NI parties)
But I suppose the reality is much more complicated than this
– a lot people I know would have voted differently under proportional
representation. Plus I see no chance of voting reform as it would never benefit the
ruling parties, and of course 2011’s AV referendum was a shambles.
There’s lots and lots and lots to say about the state of British
politics this week, and lots has been said and re-said and said again, and I’m aware that I’m neither qualified nor able to
clearly articulate the issues.
So I’ll just quote a line from Richard Herring’s blog:
“This is democracy
though. It’s all about what most people vote for. And people are fucking
idiots, so you can’t be surprised when they do something stupid”
Or perhaps a better and more optimistic one from Aneurin
Bevan 1948:
"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it"
"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it"
