Look, I know. It hurts. None of us were expecting this. And, upon glancing around this morning, the overwhelming instinct is to succumb to outright despair. The country is screwed. The electorate is evil. The UK has become a flat, ugly, smouldering disaster zone, and by the year 2020 we’ll all be dressed in rags and feasting on abandoned placentas for sustenance, like the people in Threads.
This is all absolutely true. However, we are human beings. We’ve got this far by weathering countless storms, by picking ourselves up after being knocked down, by finding chinks of light in oppressively grey skies. We’ve endured worse than this. And, for the healing to begin after a truly bruising night, that’s exactly what we must do. And it’s possible. Look hard enough, and there are countless bright spots for us to cling to today. Such as …
Ukip lost Thanet South
Despite it all, despite everything, this was something to cheer. Nigel Farage, a man who’d come to represent the worst excesses of the far right, had pinned his entire political future on securing this deprived little corner of England. But in the end goodness prevailed. God bless you, Thanet South. God bless almost every one of you.
George Galloway isn’t an MP any more
Better yet, George Galloway’s last action before not being an MP any more was to retweet a prediction that he was definitely still going to be an MP. That’s something to relish, surely? If we’re really lucky, he’ll do the same thing during the next London mayoral election.
Paddy Ashdown is literally going to eat a hat on the television
He promised that he’d eat a hat at about twenty past ten last night, so he definitely has to. It could be a flashy television event, like Splash or Tumble or that episode of Black Mirror with the pig. Either way, if you’re the owner of a small artisanal edible hat company, expect to be quids in by teatime.
Ed Balls isn’t an MP any more
And, yes, on the surface this seems like one of the most heartbreaking things to happen last night. But it isn’t. This is good for Ed. He can now devote himself to monetising Ed Balls Day, by making merchandise and signing movie option deals and hiring a fleet of Ed Balls lookalikes to travel the country once a year, delighting children by writing “Ed Balls” on things and then leaving. It’s a positive. Well, it’s not, but we can pretend it is.
There won’t be a second election
That’s something, right? We don’t have to go through the blind tedium of an election campaign again for another five years. This is it. It’s the political equivalent of ripping a plaster off as quickly as possible, although in this scenario the adhesive material in the plaster has fused with the wound it was covering, and half your leg has come away, and now gangrene has set in, plus that plaster cost you £45 because there isn’t an NHS any more. But, still, no second election!
Someone at the Treasury gets to write a hilarious ‘I’m afraid there is no money’ note to themselves this morning
And then they’ll read it. And then they’ll laugh, and then they’ll realise it’s true, and all the blood will drain from their face, and they’ll sit down staring into the middle distance trying to steady themselves, and tears will well up in their eyes as they realise the scale of the nationwide catastrophe that lays before them. See? Bright spots all over the place!
We’ve all learned a very important lesson about disappointment
Nobody in life gets everything they want, and realising this is what stops us from becoming entitled. This is why we have pets as children, so that we can learn what it feels like when something we love dies. There’s a lot we can all take from this. Especially first-time voters. Get used to this feeling of heartbreak, kids. This is literally all there is, and none of it is good, and then we die.
Also, we’ll all be dead soon!
We live on a coldly rotating speck in an ocean of total nothingness, and nothing we do can ever truly matter. All is blackness and abstract cruelty. There is no point to us, and soon we will be gone. The universe will spin on, oblivious.
It’s National Coconut Cream Pie Day!
Yummy! Admittedly it’s only National Coconut Cream Pie Day in America, and also coconut creme pies sound legitimately disgusting, but that doesn’t matter! Pies are fun! Whee! Let’s all eat a coconut cream pie! Eat it! Eat the pain away! Never stop eating! Eat the pie! Eat the damn pie! Eat it!
