Phrase of the election
A truly defining phrase needs to colour the entire campaign. It should be a turning point for the figure who coined it. It needs to be vague enough to be used as a shield by supporters and a sword by opponents. With that in mind, there can only be one winner: Ed Miliband’s “Hell, yes”, which – depending on your political outlook – either signalled the moment he blossomed into a true statesman, or when he started to act like a weird little cartoon cowboy.
Most pathetic press trick
This was the election where the Daily Mail turned into Wile E Coyote, relentlessly attempting to undermine Miliband, but inadvertently harming itself in the process. Nowhere was this more hilarious than its “Red Ed’s very tangled love life” splash. The intention was to make Miliband look like some sort of dirty-donged love rat. The reality involved unwittingly uncovering him as an object of lust. In that moment, the Mail helped create Milifandom, something it must now live with for ever.
Most unfortunate inadvertent campaign victim
Lucy Howarth is six years old, but you’ve seen her countless times. She’s the little girl who, when faced with the full-beam onslaught of Cameron campaigning at her school, collapsed face-first on to her desk. In that moment, Lucy became a fully fledged meme. For the rest of her childhood, perhaps the rest of her life, she’ll only be known as Head Desk Girl, trotted out whenever anyone needs to illustrate personal dismay in the face of the political machine. Our thoughts are with her at this difficult time.
Best member of public to ask a question during the debate
What an embarrassment of riches. Could it be Victoria Prosser, who interrupted a TV debate by dressing up as a sort of chi-chi wookiee and yelling incomprehensibly? Was it Catherine Shuttleworth, who seemed to spend an eternity haranguing Miliband about the finer details of Liam Byrne’s sense of humour? No. The real winner is 17-year-old Chelmsford schoolboy Jonny Tudor. Natty, bratty and possibly quite twatty, 10 years from now we’ll all either be working for him or dead by his hand.
Defining image of the campaign
Miliband’s eight-foot, vaguely worded, endlessly Photoshoppable limestone tablet that he promised to put up in his garden if he won the election. The tablet quickly became a temple of hubris, a monument dedicated to all the bad things that happen when you let PR folk talk you into things. If he loses, people will waste no time in calling it a tombstone. But it must not be destroyed. It needs to live for ever, because future generations need to know how dumb 2015 was.
Best moment of the Ed Miliband hen night debacle
One of the most galvanising Miliband moments came when his battle bus accidentally parked next to a squadron of excited hen party revellers. The encounter threatened to go horribly wrong: as Miliband descended the stairs to meet the group, they all spun on their heels to face away from him. Was this a prank? A stunt? A ploy to dim his obvious sexual charisma? Not at all; they were just getting into position to take selfies. Now, if Miliband ever becomes prime minister, all his appearances should rightly be heralded with a mass chant of “SELFIE! SELFIE!”
Dominant Grant Shapps identity
Could the best of the election’s possible Grant Shapps identities be Shapps himself, the put-upon and much misunderstood co-chairman of the Conservative party? Could it be Michael Green, Shapps’s millionaire playboy alter-ego? Could it be an identity that hasn’t even been attributed to Shapps yet, like Jack the Ripper or Otzi the Iceman or Batfink? No, the winner is Contribsx, the shadowy figure responsible for negatively rewording the Wikipedia entries of all Shapps’s rivals. One day, Contribsx will rise to the surface and eat Shapps, and then we’ll all be doomed.
Most horrific potential kingmaker
Step forward Katie Hopkins. By graciously taking time out from being terrible on Twitter to write “If this man is prime minister I will leave the UK” about Miliband at the end of March, she ensured that she’d have a huge hand in deciding our next leader. Either her small army of opponents would vote Labour out of spite, or her army of admirers would vote Conservative to back her up, before yelling, “Keep telling it like it is, Katie!” and accidentally jamming a fork into their eyes.
Best inspirational quote to accompany that picture of Nigel Farage looking sad in a car
After a long and fractious day in Grimsby, marked by constant trouble, Nigel Farage stepped into his car and took a deep breath. He covered his eyes. He seemed close to tears. When this image becomes the basis of a motivational poster – as it surely will – it will need a motivational caption. But which? Bernard Williams’s “Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit”? Aristotle Onassis’s “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light”? Or, as I’d prefer, Henry Ward Beecher’s “Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven”?
Most laboured election broadcast
Some parties’ election campaigns seize on a slogan and beat it to death. Not so the Liberal Democrats. When they found their slogan, they beat it to death, kept beating it, then beat it some more, then had it stuffed and wore it as a hat. Their slogan – “Look left, look right, then cross” – was bad enough. But their election broadcast, featuring a glum man in a car having an existential crisis because his satnav kept telling him to turn left and right, pushed it to a level of self-parody usually only reserved for Ukip supporters.
Most hysterical front-page headline
Without a shadow of a doubt, the Mail on Sunday’s “MAY: SNP/LAB PACT ‘WORST CRISIS SINCE ABDICATION’’’. The story here was that Theresa May had predicted constitutional confusion in the event of a second Scottish independence vote. But that’s a lot of subtle information to convey in a reactionary front page, so the word “constitutional” was dropped. And that’s why a Labour/SNP coalition officially became worse than anything that has happened since the abdication, including plane crashes, floods, terrorist attacks, the second world war and, perhaps most damningly, the short-lived BBC1 Saturday teatime gameshow Don’t Scare the Hare.
Worst celebrity endorsement
There is a parallel universe where Russell Brand’s last-minute decision to urge his followers to vote Labour would be seen as noble. After all his adamant no-voting rhetoric, there might have been something genuinely humbling about Brand’s decision to sit down, listen to all the counter-arguments, and realise that voting isn’t the fruitless anachronism he once thought it was. However, the fact that he did this weeks after the deadline to register to vote had passed, by which time many of his followers had missed their chance to have a say, smacks of something halfway between cynicism and stupidity. Runner-up: Andrew Lloyd Webber, because screw that guy.
Word that David Cameron should be banned from using for ever
For a while – especially after his ruddy, emphysemic exhortation to a gathering of accountants – it seemed like we should ban Cameron from using any variation of the word “pump”. But then a weird affectation started creeping into his speech. Whenever he spoke about voting, he’d start using the term “stubby pencil”, as if this new adjective would suddenly chime with the electorate. “Yes!” he expected us to cry, “those pencils really are stubby! What an outstanding piece of observational comedy! You’re basically Michael McIntyre! Lead us, great one.” So let’s take “stubby” from Cameron. Especially because it makes you think of his penis.
Worst insult directed at Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon has found herself walking across an emotional tightrope since she became SNP leader. On one side, she’s greeted with full-blown Obama-ish hysteria. On the other, she’s a threat to the country as we know it. Piers Morgan called her a “miniature Godzilla”. Boris Johnson compared her to both Lady Macbeth and King Herod. But the winner has to be the Mail’s “Little Miss McHypocrite”, an unusually skilled blend of a short joke, xenophobia and sexism. Unbeatable.
Conquering hero
One figure rose above all others, a figure charismatic enough to inspire awe, but inclusive enough to bring us together. A figure who appeared with many of the party leaders and was welcomed with open arms by all. A figure who, yes, admittedly might have vanished from view in recent days, but will soon return to us in a blazing vision of glory. Yes, Joey Essex, this was your election. Everyone else was simply lending it to you.
