Cancel the election. Seriously, there’s no point. We’re all doomed anyway. It doesn’t matter what hapless, scraped-together roadkill coalition we end up saddled with this year because the Conservatives will be back in charge come 2020. And they’ll stay there in 2025. And then possibly long after that, too, although hopefully most of us will have succumbed to the warm tendrils of death by then.
This is inescapable. It’s doomed to happen, and it’s down to the fact that all children are Tories. Or at least a gigantic clump of them are. The weekly kids’ newspaper First News has just held a junior general election, taken by over 5,000 children aged between seven and 14, and the results have put the Conservatives way in the lead with 40% of the vote. Labour only managed to claw a little over half that amount. The Greens, meanwhile, came in third place with 18%.
Not that this is a surprise, of course. If you’ve ever met a child, or had a child, or watched a child throw a full-blown tantrum on an aeroplane because it didn’t particularly care for any of the in-flight meal options, you’ll know that they are all inherently rightwing. They’re self-interested, they’re materialistic, they’re insular and they would literally rather go to the toilet on themselves than share anything of theirs with anyone.
Try giving a kid a biscuit and explaining that, since it’s already eaten so many biscuits, it has to give 40% of that biscuit to someone else. There’d be a riot. But this is what kids are like. They’re all Conservatives. Realistically, there is no physical or mental difference between George Osborne and a three-year-old, and this is why we’re doomed.
Now, obviously this First News election probably isn’t a true representation of Britain’s youth. It’s a true representation of the portion of British youth whose parents force them to read print newspapers – and possibly also force them to take part in other anachronistic endeavours like wearing zoot suits and rationing eggs – and therefore have the least amount of fun. That seems to be the real warning to parents here, that an interest in current affairs will drain your child of joy and lead them blindly into a life of conservativism.
Also, it’s worth pointing out that children tend to grow out of this phase. Growing up is essentially a process in which you gradually come to realise that you aren’t actually the centre of the universe, and that others’ needs are just as important as yours. Poll these same children three years from now, once they’ve started to gain a sense of the wider world, and you’re likely to see a noticeable lean to the left.
But, then again, you might not. This change doesn’t necessarily reach everybody, which is why there are young Conservatives and Ukippers and Kardashians in the world, all utterly convinced of their own utter superiority over everyone else. In fact, what am I talking about? Hardly anyone grows out of this. People are dreadful.
So screw it. There’s still time. Let’s lower the voting age to seven today, and let these little monsters seal our fates once and for all. It’s going to happen anyway, so let’s get it over with now. You win again, children. You win again.
