Where do you see yourself in five years?

GABRIELLE McGUINNESS, Week 4: Let’s go back to the future (part II)

Dear Diary,

2020 is the year the public got 20/20 vision. After what seemed like a lifetime of looking at David Cameron’s smug baby face, we are once again living under a Labour government.

Alas, I’m still haunted by the 2015 General Election. Oh how wild and free I thought I was! Only 19 years of age and filled with the certainty that the whole country shared my left-wing views. When I closed my eyes, I smelt the NHS flourishing and heard the jubilant cries as people earned a Living Wage.

But, forget about The Exorcist, the horror genre was redefined in a flash. To this day I have nightmares about that moment the exit polls flashed on the TV at the Union’s election party. Not even the threat of creepy children or demonic clowns could rival the pure terror of cheering Tory voters dressed in black tie surrounding me at the bar. It was that moment I became dead inside.

Protect yourself during the Tory apocalypse

At first I was afraid, I was petrified. I even plotted to move abroad for ten years after my degree, so when I returned my student fees would be wiped. Yet, my duty rested here. I did it for Cambridge, our fabulous cheeses and the universal appeal of Shakespeare.

Since the last election everything has changed. Miliband’s holiday in Ibiza sparked controversy when photos of him falling out of Pacha off his head and cursing the Tories went viral. Nigel Farage ironically decided to migrate to Europe. David Cameron developed such an insatiable Botox habit that voters couldn’t understand his facial expressions due to a lack of any wrinkles or emotion. Even Nick Clegg, politics’ jilted lover, confessed he weeps everyday at a photograph of the two of them during the coalition’s heyday.

For me, putting snooze on my life’s alarm by doing a masters after my undergraduate degree didn’t make me employable. It’s just been five years of debt and unemployment. But what’s an English degree ever been useful for anyway?

I mourn all the friends I’ve lost to the Tories over the years, which conveniently coincided with when they bought a house, got promoted to a six figure salary and gave birth to their first child… Me? I’m just stuck with my five housemates in our two bed flat in Shoreditch because there’s no housing left in London. At least we’re near independent cafés and XOYO, but it’s useless when we’re permanently sickly. Now the NHS is a distant memory, we’re stuck like this.

However, I guess there have been bigger fish to fry. The alien invasion of 2018 saw the revival of UKIP as they had new immigrants to attack. Scientologists weren’t happy. This was the arrival of their mothership. Aliens weren’t stealing our jobs, they were saving our souls. When the Tories agreed with UKIP, the conflict got scary. The Lib Dems were happy to join any side, so Labour had to save the day. They showed us aliens were our friends and could enrich a multicultural Britain. I was sceptical until my neighbour Bruce moved here from Mars, he’s been through hell, now all he wants is peace in the UK. How could we call them enemies?

There has been good news. Cars drive themselves and robots do our washing up. We even get decent phone and Wi-Fi signal everywhere. Pair this with the fact that Netflix owns the rights to everything and we have the joy of living in a world without buffering.

In 2019, the world rejoiced when the cryogenically frozen body of Michael Jackson was resurrected, and he’s already touring. Or, without the developments of NASA, we wouldn’t have managed to ship Jeremy Clarkson off to space. Yet, some things never change, George R. R. Martin is still writing Game of Thrones and we don’t travel on hover boards.

Cheer up, the future ain’t so bad after all!

I still reminisce about the simple days when we were controlled by Apple products and Facebook. But, let’s not dwell on the past. Remember that we’ve made it through the storm, albeit with the burden of heavy taxation, the dregs of an oppressive government and the constant threat of nuclear destruction.

If only I could go back to 2015 and tell myself to stop getting so bloody pissed off at the Tories, because you’ve got five glorious years to wear them down (politely) till they run from Downing Street.

Yours always,

Gabs x