Sports writers say the best story is always in the loser’s changing rooms. That’s where you’ll find the tears, the anguish, the grief and the self-recriminations that follow defeat. In politics it’s the same and what better place to look for losers than in the pages of the Guardian – if you have the stomach for it.
Today, Guardian writer Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett shared her grief over the Conservatives’ triumph with an archly self-parodying piece detailing all the despair felt by her friends in the days since the general election. The headline on her own lefty book of Lamentations reads: “Why it’s OK to cry about this election”.
Why indeed. Cosslett says it’s because “Emotion is derided as a weakness of the left, but many of us have loved ones likely to suffer under the Tories – or simply feel empathy for those who will.”
Forget the fact that Labour lost because it was unelectable. Ignore the reality that Ed Miliband couldn’t even eat a bacon sandwich without looking like it was the first time he had ever fed himself. The evil right stole the election from righteous, caring and perfectly formed socialists everywhere. Somebody has to pay for all that suffering so it might as well be readers of the Guardian.
It really is just so unfair, says Cosslett, that she has to live with the physical manifestations of Labour’s loss.
“This weekend has, for me, been like the most savage of hangovers. Waves of despair, punctuated by panic, anxiety, paranoia, and fear. A profound weltschmerz and a curious lack of appetite, not to mention a high-pitched monotone in my left ear that sadly, this time, cannot be put down to our decrepit fridge.
“I keep remembering and then forgetting; a welcome pleasant thought will be interrupted by the terrifying reminder of what they are going to do to the Human Rights Act. As my father said, “It’s all too awful.”
On and on it goes. Dabbing her eyes with Kleenex and struggling to keep her quivering top lip in check, Cosslett lists all those who will suffer under the fascistic regime of David Cameron’s evil Conservative warlords.
The young. Pensioners. Those on benefits. Civil servants. Low paid workers. The unemployed. Teachers. NHS staff. Aunties facing the bedroom tax. The old, the sick and the lame. Nobody will be spared. That’s what brings the tears for Cosslett and here’s why she is so overwrought. She has a bigger heart than those on the right.
“And it’s that, I think, that makes the whole thing so sad. Aside from the fear that we or our loved ones will struggle to survive this time around, it’s also all the people out there in this country who did not want this government, whose hearts, whose empathy, whose compassion have all gone to waste.”
You really can’t make this sort of thing up. If you can, then do contact the Guardian. They’ll be more than happy to hear from you.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.