Swindon, UK: The sleek purple lines of the 5.15pm train from London Paddington bears down on the platform in the station here at 6.13pm, on time and off again further west two minutes later.
The original line was built and opened in 1841 by a hero of Victorian England and the British Empire, Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who had the idea that railway lines should be straight, grandly constructed and broad and cut through the countryside with flair. He even went on to build the first steel-hulled ship that sailed the seas to India and beyond.
But those were days when Britain was ‘Great’; now it’s greatly divided as Britons vote today in a general election. And if the passengers who disgorged from the 5.15pm from Paddington are a microcosm of the nation’s electorate, the UK is in for a long period of political uncertainty.
The opinion pollsters have David Cameron’s Conservatives and Ed Miliband’s Labour pretty much tied at 34 — 36 per cent support — nor enough to sweep to power in London on a broad and grand scale as Kingdom Brunel would have liked.
Peter Offrington Parker has one of those double-barrelled names too, and walks — and talks — with the snobbish weight that it must inflict on his middle-aged character.
“Conservative,” he says in crisply clipped words shaped with an accent that central casting for Downton Abbey would kill for.
“My dear chap, David Cameron has been doing a splendid job. Our exports are booming and he has right-sized our welfare spending,” Offrington Parker says before walking on to his waiting SUV — adding a final “Cheerio” before getting in kissing a trophy wife at the wheel.
“Labour,” Jayson Brewer tells Gulf News, playing with a satchel strap that sits across his navy blue pea jacket and 1.8 metre frame.
“Can’t trust Cameron and his shower of toffs. Miliband is the only one who will help people like me buy a house.”
Brewer and his fiancee have been together for five years, are saving every penny then can, and want to be able to buy a house closer to London. “This [train commuting] is expensive and grinds you down. We want to be able to afford a home and have children.”
A heavy set woman with rosy cheeks and wind-tossed hair and wearing a shapeless floral ankle-length dress that flops under a fuscia anorak reluctantly says her name is Rachel. “I will be voting Green,” she says. “Mother Earth is hurting and is being ignored. We need to embrace her.”
This commuter town is close to Stonehenge, the standing stone monument built by the Druids 3,000 years ago. Rachel likes to cycle there on weekends to meditate on the spiritual waves that flow through that place and the cosmos.
Back on earth and political reality, Eileen Murphy is voting Conservative. “I’m in the financial services sector and I don’t think we can trust Ed Miliband or Labour with money. They overspend and increase tax rates. Fiscal prudence is required in Westminster and [Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George] Osborne is the only one who can do that. If I overspend, I get into trouble. Labour don’t understand that simple principle,” she says as she waits for a bus to the nearby small town of Marlborough.
Also waiting for a bus is John Halper, blind, and standing patiently with his woollen-gloved hands holding a white cane.
“Labour,” the retired heavy goods lorry driver tells Gulf News. “I lost my sight to glaucoma and I can just about see shadows, but that’s it. I’ve always voted Labour and I always will as long as I can.”
His wife has just been diagnosed with kidney cancer and is waiting for an operation, then dreaded chemotherapy and radiation.
Halper is off and running: “We don’t realise how great the National Health Service is until you need it. If Cameron had his way it would be like America, wouldn’t it, where if you can’t pay you’re left in the street to die like a dog. I spent all my life paying in and paying my taxes so that the NHS would be there when we need it. I now it’s not perfect but when you really need it it’s there for you. I’ve never had to wait and they’re looking after Julie good. The staff are hard working and ...”
His bus comes. Gulf News makes its apologies and bids to leave.
“Never mind, let it go. There’s always another, isn’t there? People think because I’m blind I don’t have a brain. That’s not the case is it? I love to talk. People think because I’m blind I can’t talk. Well I can. I like talking. Dubai? Why would they be interested in our election here. It must get very warm there? I don’t like the heat.”
Honestly, Gulf News has to go.
“Hang on a minute,” Halper says. “You made me miss my bus.”
