By Sam Collins

The Election from Hell

For all the limp, stale elections I’ve napped through in the last quarter century, this latest one was an absolute corker.

It was fabulous wasn’t it?

A circus ablaze with shit-hurling. A mean-spirited pantheon of misinformation and skulduggery. A month long screaming match between people that have nothing in common, on platforms where views are incapable of being properly expressed.

If this election were a football match, the managers would have been sent off and fined, fans would have invaded the pitch and the referee would have had to call the whole thing off before the first half had ended.

To be honest, I was a bit upset I couldn’t get involved.

When it came to choosing who to vote for, it was almost an impossibly crap decision to have to make. Which farcical consequence of modern western culture should I lend my support to? Which of these pathetic products spat out following years of divisive, slogan-powered, idealism deserves my democratic mandate?

In the blue corner; a spineless bumbling marshmallow that clumsily rode roughshod over democratic convention. All on the coattails of an Etonian nepotism that’d make even the most gaudy flat-white-drinking millennial feel utterly unrepresented. Whilst Johnson might possess a frustrating amount of boyish energy and a superhuman ability to remain undaunted by ridicule, he’s completely untrustworthy – if his patchy track record in public office is anything to go by. Which it absolutely should be.

In the incredibly red corner, a half-baked fledgling of the Marxist left. An activist turned ‘leader’ who has spent a little too much of his time with people that want to kill the Jews. Corbinho says a bunch of very nice things and his policies sound lovely – albeit unproved in large western economies. This is a leader that never spoke or acted like one. Forget a major political party, that sorry state of a wrinkled garden gnome, with a circus tent for a suit and a bunch of lunatics backing him couldn’t lead a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday.’

Shrieking from Row Z about Brexit at anyone that’ll listen, was the charismatic-less Swinson. I’m so angry at this lot for their complete failure to capitalise on the current state of the two main parties, I might just have to move on to the juicy part – the fucking result.

As the numbers rolled in last week, I was surprised. Surprised at the size of the Tory majority. As someone that gets a large proportion of their news from social media, I really thought it’d actually be close. Turns out Twitter is more of an echo cupboard than a chamber…

The fact that labour strongholds – the mining towns that had been decimated in part by Thatcherite policies – turned blue, is completely ridiculous. Up against those stuck up ruthless Tories, the fact that labour didn’t even put up a proper fight is quite frankly, useless.

The power of stories shaped this election as they did in the Brexit debate and US elections. It’s our job as the next crop of professional communicators to make sure the right stories are told properly.

I promise I’ll do my best to do just that.

Until then, let’s chat. Let’s keep our ideas in constant exchange and our minds wide open.