A Manifesto For The Morning After

 (This was something written very quickly as a reply to how the December 2019 election went. There was a show, arranged by Siobhan Noble, at Liverpool Arts Bar on Hope Street, the Saturday after Thursday's election - the idea being that people would create something to reflect on how they felt about the election. However it had gone. The show obviously arranged before the vote, the intention being to respond immediately. I hadn't felt I'd have anything to say so demurred.

And on the Friday morning felt that I definitely had something to say after all.

Wrote it in one sitting, emailed it over at exactly the point that Siobhan's brother Mike, who has performed in many west end shows, had spoken to her to say he was coming up and did she maybe have a monologue he could deliver?

He was excellent. Here it is.)

A Manifesto For The Morning After

You know what? I’ve got nothing

Absolutely nothing

I’ve no idea what to say, no idea what I’m supposed to say

I’m fifty-six years old, I’ve seen this happen before

I saw Thatcher waltz her way back into power on the back of a war she allowed to happen because she needed to be a war Prime Minister to get votes

I watched the manifesto of Michael Foot, the greatest Prime Minister we never had, described as ‘the longest suicide note in history’

I watched Foot, a brave proper socialist, derided by the printed media as looking scruffy as being too old

I saw them try to tarnish him by claiming he’d worn ‘a donkey jacket’ to the cenotaph at armistice

Any of that sounding familiar?

I watched John Major come back in with a government so dull that Spitting Image portrayed it in black and white and shades of grey

Then watched as it was torn apart by internal squabbles and scandals

Again, sound familiar?

And at the end of that we got Tony Blair.

And, honest to god, most of you are too young to realise this

And too much has been obscured by what he went on to do

But those first few years? That government did so much good

Those two earlier Tory wins?

They’re as bad as I thought it could get

Thursday night was worse

That John Major government? That was the year we thought Kinnock was getting in

The year we were so sure it was happening

That was the year of the the rally in Sheffield that now looks so bloody stupid, so naive

The year of being triumphal before there was any triumph

There was no triumph

This year was that year. But worse

I repeated my actions of - what was it? Ninety-three? Ninety-two?

I went to bed at three when I realised that those hideous exit poll figures had been right

I’d clung to straws. I’d asked how we could possibly all be so wrong, how the votes that had been added in 2017 could be swept away so easily

I’d asked how the many who had registered could possibly all be going the wrong way

Surely this had to be a mistake? Surely there was a shock coming

There was no mistake, only shock

And I don’t know

I don’t know what happened

I mean, I know WHAT happened, I just don’t know why

I’m not here for recriminations, I’m not here for blame

I’d like to understand but I’m not sure that’s going to happen

There are reasons

There are reasons all over the place

Pick your social media -

• which we now know more than ever are just echo chambers reinforcing our own voices and the voices of those we know agree with us - 

• and you’ll find your reasons

Those reasons might be the leader, might be the people in the party, might be the policies, might be the B word that we aren’t going to do here

There isn’t a reason

There are reasons

This is all about the plural

There’s a bit of everything

We have to learn from them

I’m not sure how we learn from them

At the moment I’m not sure there’s any coming back from this

There’ll be boundary changes

The boundary changes have been on the cards for years, the winners set the terms and the winners are going to make sure that they win next time. And the time after

They’ll move areas round so that their vote sits nicely for them

That’s happening

Scotland will go

Ireland will re-unify

I’m sound with all that, they deserve to get that chance

So we’re left with England. And Wales. But mostly England

And we know what England want now

England want the B word ‘done’

Even if they have no idea why 

Or what it will mean once it’s ‘done’

Although ‘done’ is something that’s never going to happen

This is the rest of our lives

England has looked at the two men they had a choice between and said

“We don’t trust THIS man”

“I mean, we KNOW this guy is a liar, we’re well aware that this guy is a liar”

“We know where we are with that. We know we’re being lied to”

“But THIS guy over here? Not sure about him you know”

I thought the argument might have been made

Might have been made on the policies

Might have been made on the manifesto

Might have been made on a party that where ready to do everything to benefit everyone

But it wasn’t

The argument didn’t work

And, honest to god, we need to try and figure out why

And what we can do better next time

This time started the morning after last time, next time has to start now

Next time might have already started

Might have started before we noticed

Next time might be over already

Next time might be too hard to change

And we won’t even know what we’re going to need to change for ages

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try

We should be talking about all the good it’s possible to do in the world

We should keep talking about what we need to change

“Be the good you want to see in the world” and all that

Here’s what we need to do:

Here’s what we CAN do

What WE specifically -

— very specifically -

can do:

And this is going to sound like a detour but bear with me

I was listening to the radio this morning

• Six Music, as is my wont -

And a song came on

The original version of ‘I Really Got A Hold On You’ -

• you know “I don’t like you but I love you” -

And I always preferred The Beatles cover of it but this was exactly what I needed to hear at that very moment

Smokey Robinson. The Miracles.

Smokey’s sweet wonderful voice at its most plaintiff in a moment of absolute beauty

And I’ve no idea exactly when that came out

I’m guessing sixty-two?

I’m guessing the JFK era?

I’ve no idea what the political landscape was in England

I’ve no idea what my parents thought when they heard that -

• in that time before me -

No idea what their concerns were, their stresses, their worries, their joys

But, for that moment, the context didn’t matter - 

• and context is usually everything for me -

The song was still there

The song is always there

A little bit of beauty that outlives the world it was born in

This is our job now

This is YOUR job now

Make beauty. 

Put beauty back in the world

Give people something to love

A song, a play, a book, a film, a painting, a sculpture, a poem

Just something that lets people know that there’s still; a sense of wonder out there

And if you can say something valuable in that moment of beauty?

Great, do it, it’s vital. You’ll have added something

We had the eighties and the eighties were awful round here and the music saved us

The music and the football and the theatre and the TV

And in all that being saved we made some statements

You think football can’t make a statement?

God you should have seen us all at Wembley in eighty-six

Whatever your moment is

Whatever your ability is

Make the world better with it

Look after yourself, look after your loved ones

Look after your family and your friends and look after the people you don’t know

We don’t need a siege mentality you know

We need to let people know that they’re welcome here

We need to help those who can’t help themselves

And there are going to be a lot of those

We need to volunteer

We need to talk

We need to be positive

We need to let people know there’s still a better world

That there can still be a better world

We need to let people know that there’s somebody here for them

That there’s help

And that there’s beauty

Make a difference

Everything you’ve done so far to make a difference? Keep doing that

A dream just ended

This is where we start the next one

This is what we do now