What a difference two years make. The Tories campaigned as a safe pair of hands in 2015, against the rise of the SNP and a possible coalition with Labour. Not only was the stability of our economy at risk, so we were told, but the very Union teetered on the edge if Miliband got enough seats.
Now we know the Tories are anything but safe. Their radical and revolutionary agenda to remove Britain from the European Union has reinvigorated Nicola Sturgeon. Our economy has so many questions surrounding it that "stable" is about the only word one can't use to describe it. In a world dominated by crazy men like Putin, Erdoğan and Trump we're distancing ourselves from a block of peaceful neighbouring democracies and heading out on our own.
Now they have the gall to call those who oppose them a "Coalition of Chaos"! Theresa May claimed this country was coming together at Easter but proclaims we need this election due to continuing disunity. Division abounds. Partisan rhetoric continues everywhere.
Who stands against the Tories and their complete disregard for the United Kingdom and its standing in this world? Certainly not Jeremy Corbyn. He's allowed Brexit through and has no plans of overturning it. His party claim the snap election is somehow undemocratic... yet flipping well voted for it!!
This coming election is too important for partisan posturing. Those of us who believe in a United Kingdom and a European Union will need to make decisions constituency by constituency and candidate by candidate to help competent, reliable Remainers get into Parliament. That might mean a Conservative (well Kenneth Clarke) or a competent Labour MP who voted against Brexit (though not Ben Bradshaw who remarkably doesn't understand basic EU concepts like EU agencies needing to be based... in the EU). In other places that will almost certainly mean a Liberal Democrat. I hope, I really hope, the Lib Dems listen carefully to the Green party's request for an electoral pact in some constituencies.
Fighting for the continued existence of the UK against rising English nationalism that seeks to legitimise Scottish and Northern Irish nationalism is more important that partisan bickering. Tim Farron's comments (or lack of) on homosexuality and the fact he has utterly failed, after two years, to come up with a better answer to a question he got in his first week as leader? Who cares! This isn't business as usual. This is THE election of this generation. The odds are against us but we need to fight on regardless.
