That was, inadvertently, a long break. Sorry!
In addition to having a lot of work at this time of year, I’ve found the British political shenanigans enormously stressful. Boris! Pro-rogation! Court! Brexit! Elections! I’ve been self-medicating with the owl cross-stitch cushion cover I started during an earlier Brexit drama (to my surprise I discover that I started it earlier this year, I thought I had been stabbing away at it since 2017, what a loooong time ago March seems) and lots of children’s books. In particular, thank God for Joan Aiken (although my rereading of the Wolves series was cut short by my inability to find my copy of Night Birds on Nantucket). I’ve also reread His Dark Materials, and that was fun too.
But now I am wrestling with how to vote. I’m voting in a seat which isn’t marginal but could swing, and I feel that this is an enormously important election: as so many others have said, when it comes to Brexit, the climate and the state of health and social services, this really is crunch time.
(From Punch magazine, 1859; found here)
It should be all hands on deck to obstruct a government that has disregarded and abused Parliamentary democracy and shamelessly lied and misled people while leaving thousands in terrible poverty. But it should also be all hands on deck to prevent a party which has a problem with institutional anti-semitism from achieving power. It is so frustrating that that’s the choice most of us face. Because if I don’t vote for the party with the anti-semitism problem, the morally bankrupt other party will get in. But if I do, I feel as if I am betraying a lot of people and telling them that they are less important than the groups of people imperilled by the morally bankrupt party. And I can’t afford to vote with my conscience, because other, more attractive parties don’t seem to have the faintest hope of winning in this constituency and thus I feel I’d be ‘throwing away my vote’.
I don’t believe there’s a ‘correct’ answer to this and I think we just have to do what we think is best, if only we can work out for ourselves what that is and live with the consequences. Feeling morally grubby seems to be one at least of those consequences. At the moment I am inclining to ignore the leadership and pay attention to my local candidate, who seems very impressive and has assured me that she will fight anti-semitism in her party. But I keep dithering. And I have to post my vote back soon.
British friends, I hope your voting choices are easier!
(If you are curious about tactical voting, this is the most useful article about it I’ve found.)
I think I may have recourse to the new Frances Hardinge next...