all of the general elections i have lived through, and the vibes that i remember them having

a retrospective

The BBC’s Swingometer

1992

Age: <1

Vote: none (see above re: baby)

Enthusiasm/Vibes: none (see above). I do have an abiding childhood memory of John Major and his glasses, though.

1997

Age: 5

Vote: none

Enthusiasm/Vibes: I woke up and saw celebrations on the TV; I didn’t know why. I asked my mum what was happening; I remember she said, “people have been waiting for this for a very long time.” Things… can only get… better?

2001

Age: 9

Vote: none

Enthusiasm/Vibes: I remember somewhat less enthusiasm towards Labour from the adults around me than in 1997, but I remember that it was still considered Undoubtedly Good that they won. It’s a new millennium, baby!

2005

Age: 14

Vote: none

Enthusiasm/Vibes: I definitely remember less enthusiasm towards Labour from the adults around me, and this time I understood why: I’d watched Iraq happen, I’d been old enough to understand it was wrong. You don’t need to be that old, really, to understand it was wrong. It was also peak ‘chav’-demonisation time, so it was starting to feel more difficult to line up behind Labour as the people who’d protect our interests. And yet, I remember a grudging acceptance: the Tories would be worse, and what alternative was there?

2010

Age: 18

Vote: Green 🟢

Enthusiasm: 9/10

Vibes: This is it, kids. This is ✨democracy✨. My first vote. Newly-independent, newly enfranchised, newly a political subject. And that Nick Clegg guy, gosh, he’d been saying some lovely stuff, hadn’t he? You have to remember, at this time the Lib Dems were positioning themselves as to the left of both Labour and the Tories. Weed legalisation, proportional representation, it all sounded lovely. My pencil actually hovered over the Lib Dem box. But at the last moment some spirit of premonition intervened, and prevented me from having the stain of the Coalition on my voting record. I didn’t really know who these people were. My pencil swerved, and I went with the Greens, whom I knew even less about, honestly. But I was enthusiastic about the principle of democracy. Ah, those were the days.

2015

Age: 23

Vote: Labour 🌹

Enthusiasm: 6/10

Vibes: A lot had happened for me between the ages of 18 and 23. This is, I believe, common. A lot had also happened to the country, meaning I was extremely glad not to have voted Lib Dem in 2010. I don’t remember exactly being enthusiastic about Labour - it was Ed Miliband, for goodness’ sake, and it’s not like I had any faith he really cared about my interests - but the Green candidate in my constituency was a transphobe. The beginning of a deeply cursed era - googling every candidate I might vote for ever, plus the word ‘trans’, to see what came up.

I think I was still pretty stoked about getting to vote, though. I remember being furious after the result and stomping around singing “Common People” somewhat aggressively as I looked at people and tried to see in their eyes if they’d voted Tory.

2017

Age: 25

Vote: Labour 🌹

Enthusiasm: 10/10

Vibes: I was so fucking stoked about this election. It’s Corbyn time, and look, don’t @ me, but I was somewhat enthusiastic about the idea of a government that might give one single tiny glimmering fuck whether me and the people I love lived or died. I think I actually got to vote for Labour twice - I was a friend’s emergency proxy. Then I stayed up all night watching the Tories lose their majority with my confused cat on my lap. It was a good time.

2019

Age: 27

Vote: Labour 🌹

Enthusiasm: is it enthusiasm if it’s a cursed mixture of hope and terror? Is it enthusiasm if it’s where hope goes to die? 11/10 and also 0/10

Vibes: So very much had happened and continued to happen! There was the promise of better things! I let myself believe! I not only let myself believe, but pounded the pavements in the pouring rain for weeks beforehand canvassing, to try and persuade other people to believe! I hosted phone banking parties! I got the train out to key marginals! It is so cringeworthy to think of now, and yet I have committed myself to exposing my soul in this way, so I will confess it to you. This was one of my first experiences of political mobilisation and it was intoxicating, but all the more devastating when it didn’t work. How could we have done so much and have it do no good at all? How could we have put so much love and care and energy into this project, only for it to have no benefit to anyone? What kind of a system was that? What kind of a life was that?

2024

Age: 32

Vote: spoiled ballot ❌

Enthusiasm: I mean, I’m enthusiastic about whatever fun quote I’m going to write on my ballot? But little else!

Vibes: Look, here’s not the place to list everything the Labour party has done in the past five years to lose my vote. To not just lose my vote, but push me from dues-paying mobilised member to leaving to outright renunciation. If they’d been less bad, I might have returned to my default attitude towards them, the one I was brought up with - they’re politicians, it’s not like they truly represent or care about my interests, but you’ve got to grudgingly line up behind them at election time to keep the worse guys out. That’s how I saw adults around me feeling about Labour most of my life, and that’s how I was too until Corbyn. But they have excelled themselves at being repulsive - which I mean literally, in that they have repulsed me. I cannot bring myself to put an X in a Labour box this time around, even as harm reduction, because at what point are you just choosing a slightly differently-branded harm?

Because weirdly, my vote still matters to me. I am still, to a certain extent, that bright-eyed 18 year old who’s stoked about polling station process. I no longer believe in the state, sure, but there’s still something in the ritual of being asked to make a choice. And if I believe that choice is ultimately pointless, I can communicate that too. I’m not saying this is the most politically coherent move. I can see arguments for tactical voting, I can see arguments for not voting at all. But ultimately if we’re all just doing our best to resolve contradictions in the best way we can, this is what throws up the fewest contradictions for me. If I felt like voting were the only chance I got to make politics happen, I might feel differently. But luckily, the main thing that’s happened since 2019 is that I’ve realised it’s not.