The Cambridge Election: Princess Bride Style

“So, Paul,” the man said. “There are five cups before you. One labelled Julian Huppert (LD), one labelled Daniel Zeichner (LAB), one labelled Rupert Read (GREEN), one labelled Chamali Fernando (Conservative), one labelled Patrick O’Flynn (UKIP). Four of the cups contain deadly poison. One contains wine. Which one will you drink?”

“Come, you’re a clever man, you know about politics, you care about things, surely you know which one you should drink?”

I stared at the cups, eyes widening. The man smiled, wickedly.

“Come on, Paul. You were at school with Patrick. Surely you’ll vote for your old school friend?”

I reached out, and took the cup labelled UKIP – and immediately threw it into the grass. “That’s a trap,” I said to the man. “No-one with a brain or a heart would ever vote UKIP. And I have a brain and a heart. At least I think so.”

The man smiled again. “So what about Chamali? She’s a lawyer. You teach law. Surely you’ll vote for her.”

I reached out again, and took the cup labelled Conservative – and threw it just as far as I threw the UKIP one. “Any lawyer worth his salt wouldn’t touch the Conservatives. I know what Grayling has done to our legal system. And anyway, I told you, I have a heart. No-one with a heart would vote Conservative. Another trap.”

The man’s smile became even broader. He waved his hand at the remaining three cups. Now, both he and I knew, it was a lot harder. I swallowed, looking at the three cups: Julian, Daniel or Rupert.

“Tell me,” the man said. “Which will you drink? You don’t have long. You have to choose, or the choice will be made for you.”

“I know, I know,” I said, looking once more from cup to cup.

“So what are you thinking?”

I looked at Julian’s cup. “I could vote for Julian,” I said. “He’s been a good constituency MP. He’s probably the best MP in the house in terms of the internet. He even understands surveillance. He, like me, is on the Advisory Committee of the Open Rights Group. He even opposed the rise in tuition fees. I like him. He’s a good man.”

“So drink!”

“But if I vote for Julian, and he wins, but the Tories are the largest party, then his boss Nick Clegg says they’ll work with the Tories. So we’ll have another coalition, more austerity, more division, more and nastier cuts, horrible things for education, for vulnerable people. More deaths. More demonisation. More general nastiness. So I can’t possibly vote for Julian.”

I hesitated, and didn’t pick up Julian’s cup and discard it as I had the Tory and UKIP cups.

“So drink from Daniel’s cup?”

“I could,” I said with a slight smile. “And a Labour government would be notably more protective of the vulnerable and of public services – neutral analysis of the figures make that very clear, even if Labour are still much more in favour of austerity than I’d like.”

“So drink!”

“But if I vote for Daniel, and Labour win a majority, then Yvette Cooper will be Home Secretary. We’ll have a crack down on civil liberties in the name of counter terrorism. And we’ll have full scale internet surveillance as soon as she can make it happen. So, I can’t possibly vote for Daniel.”

I smiled, but this time it wasn’t a happy smile. But I didn’t throw away Daniel’s cup either. The man grinned again.

“Rupert’s cup then? Go on, take a drink.”

“I’d like to vote for Rupert. I’m a member of the Green Party. I think their heart is very much in the right place. Their policies on austerity, on Trident, on civil liberties, on surveillance and so on are great. Even their copyright policy which people have been laughing at isn’t actually as bad as people think. And at least they’re thinking about the subject, which the others are mostly ignoring. Rupert’s even a colleague of mine at UEA.”

I hesitated again.

“But if I vote for Rupert, he won’t win. If by voting for him I let Julian win, then the Tories might be in government again and we have more smashing of the vulnerable, destruction of the NHS, the legal system and so on. And if by voting for Rupert I let Daniel win, and we could have more surveillance and more of a crack down on civil liberties again. So I can’t possibly vote for Rupert.”

The man opened his hands wide. I held up mine, to stop him speaking.

“So I’m back to Julian. Should I drink from his cup? But he hasn’t even ruled out an alliance with UKIP, or with the DUP, so if I vote for him I might help those two who are worse extremists even than the Tories, so I can’t possibly vote for Julian.”

I pushed Julian’s cup aside, and it teetered and tottered, but didn’t quite fall.

“So perhaps I should drink from Daniel after all. But that means Rachel Reeves in charge of the DWP, and more ‘toughness’ and more ‘hardworking people’. And what’s more, he wrote disparagingly about Tony Benn immediately after Benn’s death. So I can’t possibly vote for Daniel.”

“But..”

“I haven’t finished! So perhaps I should drink from Rupert’s cup. I don’t know which is worse, Julian or Daniel, so perhaps I shouldn’t care and I should vote with my conscience, for the policies. But I know Rupert was very rude to some people I know at a hustings. So I can’t possibly vote for Rupert.”

I sat back, closed my eyes, stuck my finger in the air, then reached out for a cup at random and drained it.

The man laughed.

“Did I chose the wrong cup?” I asked him, feeling myself gasping for breath.

“It didn’t matter,” the man said quietly. “I lied to you. There was poison in all five cups. Whichever you drank you were doomed.”

Messages on mugs: deaths in the Med

Immigration remains a key topic in this election – and not just on the lips of UKIP.  All the main parties are part of what is effectively a consensus on immigration: that immigration is essentially ‘bad’. It’s that consensus that leads to the hideous inhumanity that makes it somehow politically acceptable to let people drown in their hundreds. It shouldn’t be like that, if we have any humanity left.

The Tories and Lib Dems, who passed the Immigration Act 2014, have both been fuelling this message. Amongst other things that act – in many ways the most xenophobic piece of law in recent times – brings into action an increasing need to ‘check’ people to see if they’re illegal immigrants or not. Doctors, landlords, bankers etc etc are expected to check people’s papers to see if they’re what might loosely be called ‘the right kind of people’. That in itself fuels a process that suggests that some people are better than others. It’s not just immigration that is essentially ‘bad’: it’s the immigrants themselves.

Labour are far from innocent. They abstained on the Immigration Act 2014, and have taken on the whole ‘immigration is bad’ agenda in a big way. The infamous ‘controls on immigration’ mug isn’t an accident: it’s part of an overall agenda, accepting the ‘immigration is bad’ view, despite the strong moral, economic and cultural evidence to the contrary. Anti-immigrant feeling is strongest where there are fewest immigrants, migrants claim less in benefits than natives and make net contributions and so on and so forth, but somehow that is not worth arguing for. Instead we have three parties all pandering to the prejudices fuelled by UKIP and certain elements in the press. We have what ultimately amounts to a dehumanisation of immigrants. They’re not people, they’re migrants. They’re not men, women and children, they’re migrants, and a drain and a strain on resources.

Slap that message on a mug, make a pledge here and a statement there. We need to keep ‘them’ out. They’re ‘flooding here’ (humans don’t ‘flood’ anywhere, only migrants). Better cut their benefits (even though they don’t actually claim many). Better to stop them coming (over) here.

That kind of an approach leads in only one direction – to a place where Katie Hopkins can call migrants cockroaches. A place where letting men, women and children drown in their hundreds is acceptable.

We need to rethink this from top to bottom. And yes, that means everyone involved in fuelling the myths. Whatever Labour strategist came up with the ‘five pledges’, let alone that hideous mug’, is part of the same story. They’re part of the spectrum that leads to calling people cockroaches and setting the gunboats on them. All the pious statements in the last couple of days by politicians – notably Lib Dem and Labour politicians – should be viewed in that context. You’re part of what brings this inhumanity to bear. Part of the problem.