IF ONLY...

So, it`s the morning after the elections for the EU and some local councils.   Counting for the council seats hasn`t finished yet and the EU count doesn`t start until Sunday but already the signs here in the UK are pretty clear.   UKIP look to have done very well indeed but already the predictable clichés are being spouted from the Westminster bubble. 

"UKIP are a one-man band....a one issue party.....racist views.....a mid-term protest vote.....we`ll learn the lessons....come the General Election next year voters will return to the main parties....."     And so it goes on and it`s all very tiresome.  We`ve heard it all before.

Yes, there is a year almost to the day before the next General Election and it promises to be a year of living stressfully, mainly for voters who now face the prospect of a year of yet more abuse hurled at anyone who actually has the nerve to hold views contrary to those of the `main parties,` The Guardian or the BBC, such is the tolerance of our `society.`   And yet I detect a change of attitude towards `the establishment.`   People seem genuinely tired of the same old same old and I`m not sure they are prepared any longer to be treated with the kind of disdain and contempt dished out over recent years from Thatcher to Blair to Brown to Clegg and Cameron.   

They may view these results as yet another in a long line of wake-up calls but if there is one lesson that should really be learnt it is that votes will not be garnered by those who insist on school-yard bullying, on personal attack after personal attack and on continuing to deny the genuine and heartfelt concerns of  a sizeable number of `ordinary` voters.

So, what with all this facing us in the year ahead, never mind the World Cup, the Saints in apparent meltdown and Big Sam still in charge at the Boleyn, I`ll be looking for a stress free zone of my own. If only.......