Don’t give in: an angry population is hard to govern; a depressed population is easy

'Don't let the bastards get you down – choose action over despondency when coming to terms with the general election result.'

‘Hours after the Conservatives were re-elected, the government looked at cutting access to work schemes for the disabled. You’d think they’d at least have the decency to bring some flowers before shafting the vulnerable, but no. Not these guys. Not today. Today is not yesterday. Today, David Cameron does not just have the political will to slash welfare and widen the wealth gap: he has a mandate.

I have spent much of the past 48 hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling, reading despairing, four-letter posts on social media and trying to work out how on earth this happened, as if anyone with half a brain doesn’t know. The political elites closed ranks and capitulated to a politics of fear, first in Scotland, and then across the nation.

The muddled, equivocating voice of what was once the party of the left could not compete with the merciless message of austerity telling us we got what’s coming to us. We know what that is. More cuts to public services. More inequality. More lies. More of the old Cameron doctrine with no pratting about pretending we’re all in it together. The same great taste, now with zero liberals.’

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