In case the headline threatens to give you nightmares, there's a happy ending which I shall get to in due course.
But I'll start a long way before the beginning of that little story.
The older tale has been told before, possibly here. It once drew laughter at one of what we used to call the YouGov lunches at The Daily Telegraph, where I worked - happily, but without ever inhaling - for 29 years.
YouGov did the opinion polls for us. I was just about high enough up the Telegraph pole to be included at these gatherings once a month or so for decent grub generously accompanied by wine, in those pre-Puritan Age days, in the executive dining suite of the Telegraph's Canary Wharf offices.
There, we'd toss ideas about for forthcoming surveys of public opinion. I am instinctively suspicious of the polls, but fascinated by them at the same time. How can a sample of 1,000 or so people, generally considered safe, seriously show us how many millions not contacted (YouGov is internet-based) or questioned in the street will vote, or how they think? It's a hard question and yet, if we are honest and fair, we also remember how often the polls have got it broadly right.
At the lunch that came into mind again today, the eve of the UK general election, we were talking about people who voted abnormally, that is to say tactically or simply against what might be expected of them.
I instantly thought of my late mother. Growing up in the North East in the 1950s and 1960s, I could be excused for thinking the Conservative Party, and the Liberals come to that, did not exist. They were certainly no part of our lives.
The saying was that if you put up a monkey for election, it would duly be elected provided it was wearing a Labour rosette. The mischievous response was along the lines of "too true: it happens each election". This being an age of male supremacy, wives generally voted the way their husbands voted; it was not right, looking back, but it was the way things were.
In our house, we took the Daily Herald, one of the handful of Labour-supporting newspapers eventually killed off by the Labour-voting public's failure to match a loathing for the Tory press with a willingness to buy left-wing or left-of-centre equivalents.
Dad had tried unsuccessfully to be nominated a Labour councillor. He was not remotely extremist in his views. But when the miners went back to work after Labour defeated Edward Heath in the infamous "who governs Britain?" first election of 1974, he was critical of the NUM leadership, saying they should have stuck out for immediate settlement of their demands. There was nothing uncommon, in the North East, in such a view.
In the decades that have elapsed, I have registered occasional protest votes against Labour, but could no more tick the box for a Conservative Party candidate than I would commit mass murder. For better and often for worse, I am a lifelong Labour voter - give or take those little lapses - and this makes me a leopard with spots that will not change.
But even back then, mum - my parents were Londoners so it was never "mam" - would say every so often: "You know, if only I thought the Liberals had a chance, I'd vote for them."
Poor old Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe, Liberal leaders of the time, would offer smiles at the thought, wherever they may be resting. They'd be even more chuffed to know that, shortly before her death in 1986, mum told me with a wicked little grin: "You remember me saying that. Well, I did vote for them!"
Of course, the monkeys were still voted in. I tell the tale more than anything to remind readers of tribal loyalties in politics.
My old colleague Tom Utley - terrific company, a lovely writer and these days happy at the Mail as a pig in its own dirt, as we used (approximately) to say - describes himself as "tribal Tory" and I know exactly what he means.
No matter what a mess his party makes of things, however appalling he finds its leadership or policies or both, it's his party, his mess, his party's basketcase of a political programme or campaign.
Tom is casting his tribal vote without the least enthusiasm tomorrow; I would have had no more enthusiasm in casting my equivalent if I had not failed to act on noble intentions to record my vote from France.
It seems almost impossible to warm to the Labour of 2015. When I think back to Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, even after taking account of their many flaws, I just cannot see Ed Miliband as a worthy successor. But I am Labour as Tom is Tory; it won't be shaken off.
So I was dumbstruck when Christelle, my elder daughter, said, by way a cowardly text message, that she was "thinking of" voting Conservative. It has preyed on mind in the two weeks since she said it. There was no reply to my kneejerk threat to disown her (it wasn't serious). But I have thought of that text every day since it zipped onto my mobile phone screen.
And today, I couldn't resist. "Are you still voting Tory?" I demanded to know. Now, she arrives for a short stay on Saturday and may have thought it better to humour me and ensure there'd be food on the table (she's too old for me to stop her pocket money).
But her reply was plausible as well as reassuring, and I agree with the second bit: "No, Labour. But I think Cameron is a better leader."
Filial duty has been done. But hang on, what are her sister Nathalie's plans for tomorrow?
"If I vote it will be for Ukip," came the reply.
I was back in my chair from the ground by the time the follow-up dropped: "Joke - Labour." And at least she remembered to put a dash between the two words.
Recent Comments