‘How are you going to pay me back?’ This is the eternal question of the hard-pressed dad as he hands £10 to a teenage son with an urgent appointment at the snooker club. ‘My Saturday job,’ says Isaac satirically. He hasn’t got a Saturday job and that’s my fault, apparently. His friends all have immensely well-connected parents who can offer them high-powered internships at Miramax and Coutts. But Isaac hasn’t secured one of these coveted placements. His mother, an archivist, employs an assistant who doesn’t need a second assistant. And the only professionals I know are narcissistic scribblers who sit at their laptops in a fug of crack fumes and unwashed laundry. The last thing they want is a perky youngster offering to make TikTok videos or to buy opioids for them on the dark web.
I hate animals. I fear animals. My hope is that if I don’t try to eat them they won’t try to eat me
Isaac claims to know someone whose dad works in Downing Street as head of robotics, AI, digital manipulation and Deep-State fakery or something. And this leading civil servant has been told to cancel all leave from the start of April. To Isaac this heralds a spring election which will be a disaster for him personally. He was born in late June so he’ll lose the chance to cast his first vote. As he’s studying politics at A-level, and I’m very keen for him to get involved in the democratic process, I offer to sell him my vote. ‘OK, a fiver,’ he says. ‘By the way, is this legal?’ ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It’s a serious offence but around here it’s standard practice.’
By ‘around here’ I mean Tower Hamlets, where voting rights are bought and sold like any other tradeable commodity. ‘I want 50 quid,’ I said. ‘Final offer.’ After a bit of haggling we shook hands on £25. Our mayor, Lutfur Rahman (who was barred from politics for vote-rigging in 2015), would be proud of us.
But which party? Here, my son was torn. Part of him wanted to support a candidate who was aligned with his own political views. Another part of him, perhaps stronger, wanted to shock and outrage me by endorsing the cause of some dribbling lunatic fantasist. However, he knows that I prefer to vote for dribbling lunatic fantasists like the RCP (Revolutionary Communist party) and I’d happily put my X beside the name of some sad misfit besotted by Marxist fairy tales. If he really wanted to drive me nuts, he’d ask me to vote Lib Dem or, even worse, Green.
Then he came up with an even more detestable cause: the Animal Welfare party. I hate animals. I fear animals. And I always will. But I steer well clear of them. My hope is that if I don’t try to eat them they won’t try to eat me. And my truce with the animal kingdom holds.
Isaac has a more complicated view. He commissions the slaughter of various species, both wild and domestic, and he devours their corpses on a daily basis. When I mention his Stone Age diet by referring to ‘body parts in the fridge’ he grows resentful and tells me that his love of animals is easy to reconcile with his habit of beheading and eating them whenever he gets hungry. ‘It’s just nature,’ he says. ‘Not really,’ I tell him. ‘The fact is that you like animals in the same way that Jeffrey Dahmer liked hitch-hikers.’ A stalemate descends. ‘But OK, just to please you, I’ll vote for the animal rights crusaders as long you’ll admit that you’re a steaming hypocrite. Deal?’
A two-state solution in Palestine would be like Fred West sharing a caravan with Harold Shipman
No deal. He brings up Gaza, which is likely to dominate the general election just as it dominates Tower Hamlets, where every lamppost flutters gaily with the Palestinian colours. Again, we’re at loggerheads. I accuse his side of harbouring genocidal intentions and he accuses my side of performing genocidal actions. ‘The two-state solution’ is the formula that brings a temporary halt to our heated exchanges but neither of us has any hope that harmonious co-existence is possible. The two-state solution may work on the Iberian peninsula where Spain and Portugal are at peace, but the mood is far uglier at the opposite end of the Mediterranean. A two-state solution in Palestine would be like Fred West sharing a caravan with Harold Shipman.
I offer him a compromise. ‘If there’s no Free Palestine candidate, I’ll vote for the animal welfare loonies. And you owe me £25 – which I’ll knock down to 20.’
He thought about this. ‘You’re going to vote Reform. I know you are,’ he said. ‘Absolutely not, Isaac, I intend to carry out the solemn instruction of the voter – which happens to be you. And I want £10 in advance.’ ‘I’ll owe it to you,’ he said. ‘And you’ll vote for Reform whatever you say. I can tell.’
OK, maybe he’s right. At least he’s learning how politics works. Once they’ve got your vote they do what they like. And to hell with you.
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