I write this after voting in our General Election but it will be published after the results are known. As any faithful readers will know, I love voting, and I love General Elections. I’ve bought some snacks to sustain me when I start watching the results in the middle of the night.
Voting in my world involves a short walk to our 12th century church, through the sunny graveyard where an old friend or two are buried, saying hello to the people at the polling station (at the back of the church), voting, checking I voted for the right person, and slotting my ballot in the box. Every part is wonderful. As the American Senator Raphael Warnock said (and wouldn’t he make a good president, methinks):
‘Democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea, the sacred worth of all human beings.’
‘A vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire.’
Such a privilege, and so simple. Not an idea, sadly, that has caught in China or North Korea, nor in a whole bunch of other countries, too many to number, where the current leaders fix things beforehand; or whine and worse after the event.
A couple of further things.
- The most effective prime ministers since the war, I would argue, are those who’ve led their party to replace the former lot as the governing party (think Atlee, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron; not so sure about Wilson and Heath though). This is quite rare, and so today’s vote is worth cherishing perhaps.
- ‘Righteouness exalts a nation’. I’m not too excited by culture-war stuff. But wouldn’t it be good to be good with poor, the broken, the left-behind? Wouldn’t it be good to fix the environment? Wouldn’t it be good to have basic common good things in place so that everyone can thrive, everyone under his own vine and fig tree? Let justice flow like rivers.
- The new lot will fade and die. Mrs Thatcher had the poll tax; Mr Blair, Iraq; Mr Cameron, Brexit. Let’s hope someone good is ready to replace them.