Rewind

How time flies. 

 

Around this time in the morning three years ago Labour were celebrating delivering another Tory led government, again to the right of the previous one. Maybe at the next election, in 2022, they'd actually make a stab at taking power, but it was vital to let the Tories do Brexit first and so avoid having the blame for its inevitable failures.

 

It was also the moment Nick Clegg left the political stage. I've mixed feelings about the chap, but he does still have the title "most effective politician on the UK left of the last decade."

 

Theresa May's coalition government duly fulfilled Mystic Clegg's 2015 warning of a "Blukip coalition" between the Tories and the DUP delivering UKIP's agenda - a programme which like Section 28 is quite definitely "for the many not the few".

 

People who never watched The Blame Game and only skim-read BCN suddenly came across the existence of the DUP, and what a rollercoaster ride that was for many of them. And indeed for the DUP - snubbed by Cameron in his search for a majority in 2010, at last having their fifteen minutes of fame.

 

The concessions won by the smaller parties in coalition type things are fascinating. The Liberals got higher tax for the rich, lower tax for the poor, same-sex marriage, the scrapping of ID cards and the trans tax, etc. The DUP got big fat wads of cash spent in their constituencies in proper "pork barrel" politics. I remain curious about what the Co-operative Party got in exchange for keeping Brown in power. I can't name anything - does anyone have any ideas?

 

Now Johnson has his 80-seat majority we've all been allowed to forget that Northern Ireland exists, which is a shame as the political system there is quite instructive for people who want to understand mainland UKanian politics better but need a blank slate rather than the world they are used to.