39) My formula for happiness.
Like all proper formulae it is expressed as an equation: R - E = H. That’s Realisation minus Expectation equals Happiness. As long as things turn out better than you thought they would you are relatively happy. If they exceed your wildest hopes you are ecstatic. If it’s no more than marginal, well, maybe that’s nothing to get too excited about, but it’s not too bad.
Of course, R - E can also equal U. If you expected more than you get you are quite naturally going to be Unhappy. And your degree of U can range anywhere from being slightly disappointed to absolutely devastated.
Funny thing is, exactly the same R can leave you leave you either ecstatic OR devastated. All depends on your E. If you never expected to be left a single farthing by Great Aunt Flo, then news that ten grand is on its way to you will be ample cause for breaking out the bubbly. But if you’d convinced yourself you were getting the yacht, the chateau and the entire contents of her Bahamian bank account and all you get is ten measly thousand you will be drowning your sorrows straight out of a gin bottle in a brown paper bag.
I think this is what explains Corbynmania. Thanks to opinion polls before May 7th which suggested that Labour might end up in government, and to newspapers columnists and telly pundits who kept banging that message home, Labour supporters found on Election night that the R was way, way below their E, and, as a consequence their U is deeper and more bitter than they had ever imagined it could be.
What a contrast to the Tory ecstasy. They hardly dared dream of winning outright so even a paltry majority of 12 had them dancing in the aisles. But had a Tory government been predicted all along, they’d have been sharpening the knives before you could say Dave’s a one nation wuss.
So it is Labour in mourning. Almost literally I think. So profound has been their upset that their U isn’t so much U as full blown G. G as in Grief. And what are the five stages of Grief? Shock,Denial,Anger, Sadness, Acceptance. (Or something like that.)
I would say that Labour diehards are coming through the shock stage and are well into Denial and full blown Anger. How dare this happen to them? How could the voters spurn them? How could the country have got it so bloody WRONG?
And so they fulminate. No cool, careful, calm analysis. Not even a recognition of the bleeding obvious when it is staring them in the face. Their tears of frustration and rage blind them to that. No, the people just didn’t know what was good for them. And so the answer is obvious - the people must must be made to take the course again. And they must be taught more - much more - rigorously. Having rejected Red Ed’s lurch to the Left they must learn that what they really need is Jeremy’s neo-Marxism - no, make that Jeremy’s Neanderthal Marxism.
And if after that the people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them, well then fuck the people. We will stand up for what we believe in and shout it from the rooftops even if nobody is listening. Who needs to win a General Election anyway? We can take to the streets and wear those nifty Guy Fawkes masks like the Occupy people. We can march with our died in the wool, dirt beneath the fingernails, working class comrades like Charlotte Church and Russell Brand. Yes, we may be destined for certain failure and electoral oblivion but our ideological purity will be unstained. Mine eyes shall see the glory!
Can the sainted Jeremy actually win this election to become Labour leader? Given the crazed-with-grief mood of ‘the Party’ it seems all too possible.
And then in a year or three, after an election rout or two, will come the sadness stage and the acceptance, and the realisation that Labour - if it still exists - made a monumental fuck-up.
Their repentance will be great but then there’ll be plenty of leisure, endless years of it, in which to say their Hail Jez’s.
If only those sodding opinion polls had got it right. If only a dismal Labour defeat had been expected. Think how much less of a shock the result would have been. How much less disconcerted the party would have been. How much less discontented. How much less discombobulated. How much clearer might be its thinking.
It might even be in a state of mind to elect someone who could actually lead it to power.
