About halfway through Dennis Potter’s Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton, a bitter satire on what Labour’s machine politics tend to do to young idealists, a telephone rings in a constituency office. Jack Hay, the eponymous candidate’s wily old agent, picks it up. It’s the parish priest.
“Oh hello, Father. Yes, Father, Mr Barton will be only too happy to meet a delegation of Catholic parents. Friday? Yes. Let me see… Well, at 11 o’clock he’s got a meeting with the local Family Planning A… ah. Ah. With the… sorry, Father. I think that Monday would probably be more convenient.” He replaces the receiver and frowns. “God almighty. Democracy is so bloody complicated.”
Bloody complicated. That was the lot of a Labour government