Although today doesn’t quite feel like glad new morning, it does feel that the first steps have been taken in getting our country back. For which we have to thank the younger generation. In sharp contrast to some of their predecessors who got us into this mess in the first place. At which point, perhaps I should explain what I’m on about.
You see, as anyone who’s read almost anything that I’ve ever written, I believe in a world where sharing and caring and not greed an avarice are the oil in society’s engine. And don’t tell me that someone has to pay for it, of course they do. That’s what taxes are for. They’re the price of the ticket to a civilised society.
Now I’ve had more arguments than I care to remember with people who tell me that the world doesn’t operate in the way that I see it. At which point, I refer them to an article entitled “Goodland” by John Studzinski in The Guardian some four years ago. In this, he explains that this land, that I’d like to live in, does exist, albeit with different examples of it actually working in various countries throughout the world. Meanwhile, in our own country a little over a year ago, an unnecessary referendum unleashed a torrent of bile, prejudice and viciousness, stoked by some of the gutter press, that was alien to everything that I valued about the country that I live in. It was as if a race of aliens had taken over this green and pleasant land. A race, moreover, that looked as we do but had no understanding of the motivation or mores of the country that they had chosen to invade. Now, it may just be where I live or the people I mix with, but I recognised none of these people from among those I knew or met. I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
Well, yesterday, I went to vote and, waiting for my wife, couldn’t help but notice the number of young people at the polling station. At that point, I felt a new hope and, even though I was apprehensive, the election result when it came wasn’t really a surprise. So, my grateful thanks to that younger generation; the world is now more theirs to frame than mine. The good news is that they seem to value sharing and caring more than greed and avarice and, given what we’ve all had to put up with for the past few years, with little other than more of the same to come, who can blame them?