The mourning after
The Five Stages of Electoral Grief
There aren’t many days when I can say I’ve been through the five stages of grief before I get to my first engagement of the morning. Having woken up and blearily seen the words ‘Conservative majority’ on my mobile phone I began a sort of grieving.
“immeasurably more crushing and unkind than I could ever have feared”
— Nick Clegg
Denial was easy, I was in denial from the second the Exit Poll came in became impossible to be in denial any longer, until my phone delivered the news of a majority.
Anger was probably symbolised by me brushing my teeth and swearing at the television at the same time. I found staying angry difficult, something that hasn’t been at all difficult for many people in my social media bubble. Sadness loomed over my anger, everything that had happened was surrounded by human misery whether that was people in food banks and suffering from Dickensian benefit sanctions or the very real sadness of Lib Dem and Scottish Labour MPs who’ve given their lives to their constituency and their party and are now out on their ear having been rejected in the most public way possible. Anger is important but I just can’t manage to keep it up. “It’s not fair” they say, I’m afraid it is, I want to reply.
Bargaining, negotiating with a higher power for a way out of grief. Wondering if there was any way to avoid five more years of David Cameron as PM. Perhaps riot and revolution would break out, an EU referendum would split the party, defections to UKIP and by-elections erasing his small majority. Not desperately likely and certainly not providing any instant relief.
Depression lasted longest. I was on the top deck of the bus listening to the Today programme when I heard Caroline Lucas retain her seat and burst into tears of relief for one of the few small mercies that have come out of last night. After that I began to think about how important my country is to me and just what can be done to it by five years of Conservative rule. That culminated in me, sitting dejected in a coffee shop, tweeting about how much I love Britain and crying into my coffee, a very modern misery.
Acceptance comes when you have to get on with life. A training session, a morning away from Twitter and the Guardian website and the righteous anger of my liberal internet bubble. It’s time for a fresh start amongst the opposition, out with Clegg, Farage and Miliband. At least politics will be interesting in the weeks and months to come and perhaps this government will be more moderate and compassionate as their ‘One Nation’ might suggest. After all, ‘what’s done is done’.
