Bi Don

            Hello, lovelies.

      We’re a week on from the most polarized election in recent memory. Whether the right candidate has won will be played out over the next four years. But what have we actually learnt about us and the results? Is it all done and dusted? Can we now talk about something else? Or has this whole fiasco opened an awful can of worms? And what does our preferred candidate say about us?  Can we go back to our new normal? Or has Pandora’s box been opened for good?

            Growing up I was the last person who wanted to talk about politics. I was born in the late ’70s so my first introduction to politics was during the formidable Iron lady’s rein, Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister. She was elected on 4th May 1979 and ended it with an internal party coup that ousted her as prime minister on 28th November 1990. So, my childhood was full of Conservative policies and the endless brutal riots. From April to July 1981, England suffered serious riots across many major cities. There were the race riots between different and competing communities, all related to racial tension and inner-city deprivation, and the riots were caused by a distrust of the police and authority. The most serious riots in the early 80s’ were the Brixton riots in South West London. But that decade was a very long decade, filed with many austerity cuts, the end of the GLC and the closures of many coal mines in the North of England. They may not have affected me directly, but for those living out of London really felt the Iron Lady’s unfeeling attitude towards tradition and the working classes. Then there was the miners' strike of 1984-85. A major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. Margaret Thatcher was opposed to the strikes, as she wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions. And let’s not talk about the introduction of the infamous Poll tax.

For me growing up politics was a contentious subject, one best not spoken about over the dinner table. Saying that, your political leanings were often decided on by where you were born, and how much money you had. So, growing up in south London, I should have been born into a conservative family. I lived in a big house and went to good schools. But I wasn’t. My mother was a liberal Lefty. And I can remember her having many heated conversations, including with my grandmother, on the importance of helping those who need help, and not only looking out for those with money. But back then you were either one of us or one of them. And no one wanted to be one of them.

Then politics became boring. Yes, there were protests that we all went on, and many petitions to sign. And not forgetting the Falkland’s war, Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, the list goes on. The news was always full of something terrible happening somewhere. But by and large, we all moved forwards. And we realised that in times of uncertainty people wanted to stick to the status quo. We wanted our government to be boring but strong. A government that could with-stand any slings arrows that were thrown at them. We wanted a strong progressive understanding tolerant government, that had its citizens at the centre of everything it decided. Which is why we were all swept up in the sensationalism of the American Trump/Biden election. We were used to having very boring politics and politicians, who, yes, occasionally had affairs, and were caught up in underhand backhanders and bribery, but never was the moral state of our society held in such a precarious position. The 2020 American election really did put all of us into different camps. Those for Trump and the rest of the world. Those on the right couldn’t see what the rest of us could. They still can’t and are behind Trump as he takes his claim to the Presidency to the courts. But politics should not be sensational and so polarising. It should just be a turning of events, but always pointing in the same direction. Not where the TV and radio stations have to stop playing the president's speech due to the insurmountable number of lies he spouts.

But what does the American election have to do with me and you? We’re all the way over here in England. But it has everything to do with us. Our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is becoming a small knock off copy of Trump. How much longer will we survive with his ill-thought-out policies and cuts? And Ridiculous overspending on failed PPE and the Corona Virus. Johnson now has the courage to stand in front of the world media and lie with ease. He even lied in front of the Queen. Who does that?

And what of the hate and racism that has come from the Trump presidency? Now that that has been released where will it go? The fear and irrational that has been set forth on to the world stage won’t easily go away. And it won’t go away with logic and facts, as the beliefs behind the right are so strongly held and even interlinked with their religious faith. But we must not let the fear and racism run wild. We need to arm ourselves for a battle that we’re about to have. But arm ourselves with facts and understanding, not guns and knives. We did it before. We fought hatred and racism in the past, so we can do it again. We need to say goodbye to the Trump era of hatred and fear and hello to a world working towards unity.