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Despite the fact that she could have continued to govern until 2020 without calling a general election, Theresa May called a sudden one for 8 June 2017. She wanted to show who governed the country and she needed a bigger majority. She wanted people to back her vision for Brexit, as people have come to call the process for leaving the EU. She campaigned on the basis that she could provide strong and stable government. She wouldn't take part in debates with other leaders, she hardly ever met ordinary people and she, like Edward Heath in 1974, found out who indeed ruled the country; the ordinary people. Instead of increasing her majority, she completely lost it. She still had the most MPs but not a majority. She then did a deal with the Ulster Unionist party who said they would support her on major matters. This allowed her to go to see the Queen and form a government.
The election was possibly the first time since 1997 that the two main parties were totally different. When Tony Blair led the Labour party, which was called New Labour, he moved its policies closer to those of the Conservative party. People chose more about personalities than policies. In 2015, after the election loss, Labour elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Corbyn was a old-fashioned Labour politician. He had never held a position in government, always being a back bench MP. He had voted against his party on many occasions when he didn't believe in what they were doing. He had totally opposed the Iraqi war in 2003. He didn't believe in nuclear weapons. He was, according to those in his own party, unelectable. The result was he increased the number of Labour MPs to 262 and gained a bigger share of the total vote than any Labour leader who didn't win power since Harold Wilson in 1970.
He appeared popular among young people and that was possibly because he actually went out and talked to ordinary people every day of the campaign. Where do we go now? I have no idea. It's up to you, when you have the vote, but when you do, make sure you use it. It will be up to you in the future too.
On June 14 2017, in a tower block in London, a fire, which started on the fourth floor, quickly took hold and resulted in the death of 70 residents. The building was known as Grenfell Tower. It was built in the 1970s, one of hundreds of tower blocks and had been renovated in 2016.
There is now an inquiry into what happened so it is wrong to make guesses but it is certain that many questions will be asked about how these buildings are built, looked after, renovated and managed.
Let's all hope that the answers that are found mean it will never happen again.
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