The importance of admitting defeat in politics

I was pleased to see that the game is up for Hillary Clinton, in the opinion of everyone other than Ms Clinton herself at least.

But closer to home - just across the road in fact - my neighbour shows an unwillingness to concede electoral defeat that Robert Mugabe would be proud of.

In the weeks preceding the election, he had every window of his house covered in a mixture of “Vote Labour” and “Vote Ken Livingstone” posters.

These are freely available in the run-up to an election for anyone who feels strongly enough about a particular candidate to turn their house into a political advertisement. Who would be influenced by such posters I can’t imagine.

I was tempted to get some Brian Paddick posters for our house just because I liked the thought of our neighbour concluding, correctly, that I was only doing it to piss him off (since our house is directly opposite his and nobody else on the street had any up). Alas laziness got the better of me.

Anyway, he’s taken them all down except, curiously, for one, pictured below.

Look at it, shining on from the top floor like a tiny beacon of democracy, a flame that burns eternally in memory of the third term that could, nay should, have been.

I am thinking of taking up the violin just so I can learn one very sad song which I will stand beneath his window and play over and over until Boris is impeached or he takes down the goddamn sign.

Whichever comes first.

~ by esquilax on 9 May 2008.