A Hesitant Return To Politics

It may not have passed your attention that OG (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person) has been deafeningly silent throughout all the electoral shenanigans that came to a halt last Thursday. What you perhaps will not have forgotten is that OG aka Big Fat Pig (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person by two different noms de plume) has expressed a comprehensive detestation of all our political tribes.

All of which means that I was surprised by OG's reaction when the (surprisingly accurate) exit poll was unveiled on the BBC at just after ten o'clock on election night. He punched the air and allowed himself a celebratory beer. It was not that I was delighting in the triumph of the serial adulterer Boris Johnson, but that Corbyn and McDonnell would not be allowed to lay waste a country which, despite it all, I still love.

I believe in the nation state and in a mixed economy which is sceptical of state intervention. I also believe in old-fashioned public decency and education as both a right and an opportunity. Corbyn and the dangerous McDonnell would impose upon us their dreary and West-hating dogma. I punched the air because I knew I would not after all be governed by men who despise affluence and think they know better than I how my money should be spent. Only when the danger had passed did I realise how serious I had been about the prospect of emigrating. Here's hoping that The Boy Boris can pull off that elegant trick of combining fiscal conservatism with nuanced liberalism. The Pig will not be holding his breath but for a small time he will tend to optimism.