Things can only get...?

Fill in the missing word yourself, according to your preference, or read on.
Here we are at this early hour- or is it late- on Election Night 2007, or rather post-election morn. Due to various procedural changes to protect against postal voting fraud, many of the results of the local council elections which took place in England and Scotland yesterday will not be declared until later today. May the fourth be with you!
The process which is democracy, however flawed, will bring new stars onto the political stage today, while others will just have to hope that the warring words will soon die down, at least until the next election. Yet some of the customary dynamic drama of the dark hours, waiting for the winners and losers to be revealed after the people have had their say, is lost in the chore of checking- though in Scotland, the story seems to be one more of a farce than a force, with allegedly over a hundred thousand spoilt ballot papers caused by the confusion of voters and tellers getting to grips with mainland Britain's first attempt at proportional representation for local elections but not for the Scottish Parliament elections, which were also held yesterday in the same week as the 300th anniversary of the sealing of the union between the Scottish and English realms.
While a more representative voting system in any form is to be welcome, these failings are a sad confirmation that trust- not just in politicians but in general- has become a devalued currency this last decade, while ironically the pound seems stronger than ever against the once mighty dollar.

Things can only get wetter might be the forecaster's choice of words for a song this week, as the record Spring temperatures which have held sway over the UK for five weeks with hardly a drop of rain seem set to finally disperse over -you've guessed it- the coming Bank Holiday weekend (our belated British celebration of Mayday). But for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, it seems like the autumn of his prime ministerial career is nearing it's nadir, as his long-trailed resignation announcement seems imminent following the elections and his own promise that a "definitive" statement on his future will come next week.

The eulogies for Blair are unlikely to be as fulsome as the tributes seen yesterday in Winchester, one time capital of England, as Alan Ball, one of the "heroes" of the 1966 England soccer world cup squad was given a proper sending off at his funeral to the accompaniment of choristers, and chanting reminiscent of old Wembley's terraces. Will Tony Blair's reputation survive as long as "the boy" (Ball was the youngest England player at just 21 in that glorious cup year of 1966)? Somehow I doubt it. Where footballer's fame lives for ever, Joe and Josephine Public are renowned for their fickleness when it comes to their affection for their leaders.

You've got to feel a certain sadness for Mr Blair, as the easily-forgotten achievements of his ten years at Number Ten seem set to be buried under the forest of newsprint devoted to his exit through the blackest door in London. Press and public alike are more likely to focus on his fateful decision to take Britain into war in Iraq, a tragedy which still claims the lives of British servicemen and civilians of all nationalities alike in the post-saddam anarchy of that sad state.

It all seems a very different climate to the winds of change which you could palpably feel blowing that weary May morning with the post-election euphoria of the Labour landslide after eighteen years of Conservative rule. There was a very real sense of optimism and hope,and for my part, I was full of that as I retreated to the Pavilion Gardens in Brighton for a time of prayer after spending the night in the excited bustle of a BBC news bureau on election night alongside an old friend working for their regional TV service that night.
But, as fallen Tory star Enoch Powell famously remarked "Every political career ends in failure". Sadly, it's part of the job description. Only death in service, which befell Mr Blair's pre-decessor as Labour and opposition leader, the far from ordinary John Smith, is guaranteed to win plaudits rather than brickbats. Such is the nature of politics. Even Margaret Thatcher, whom history will record as Britain's first ever woman prime minister and respected as a great stateswoman internationally- not least by the late Russian leader Boris Yeltsin- fell by well-plotted backstabbing by her erstwhile colleagues, albeit not in Rome but in Paris.
Yet if politicians have to leave office followed by less than glorious clouds, at least Tony Blair can depart in the knowledge that he has tried his best, to adhere to his principles and in so far as it was possible, to mix pragmatism with idealism. Mr Blair claims Christian allegiance, though was mercilessly chided by the media when it was suggested he prayed with the man some would see as his nemesis, George Walker Bush.
But 28 years ago today, Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street by that same black door, pausing on the doorstep to quote words attributed to St Francis of Assisi- though subsequent commentators have suggested "where there is discord, let me bring harmony" actually comes from a prayer written in France in 1912. Truth and fiction seem blended here as is ever the way with politics; it seems to be becoming harder by the day to work out what's really going on in those gothic towers beside the Thames, let alone in the machinations of international dealings across the sea with Washington.

At least the Queen is celebrating the "special relationship" in Virginia, USA at the moment in a somewhat more dignified manner than the backbiting and caterwailing which so often accompanies the parlaying of representative government, whether at local or national level. Maybe the queen knows better than most that service is what really matters. As fallible, fallen humans, we can only try to make things better, for everybody's sake. Whether they get better depends as much on faith as action. Many would say that Britain has not got better over the last decade, but worse. More violent, less peaceful. More greedy, less sharing. More cynical, less caring. There may be an element of truth in this- but what's new.

The truth in my eyes is that as long as we rely on our own wisdom and strength to accomplish anything of worth, we get nowhere. Pride, arrogance and self-interest or just expediency will always be the enemies of lasting achievement for the betterment of humanity- which surely should be the motivation of all politicians, whatever their political colour. But what can happen instead if you put the needs of the world and the nation in the hands of the man from Galilee rather than Westminster first?
Jesus too knew failure and an inglorious departure from general favour-and for three heart-stoppingly awful days for his followers. All the power and hopes they had harboured seemed lost on the rude cross of Calvary. His only epitaph seemed to be the inscription scrawled in Latin initials as cynically and quickly as a satirists's barb on that obscene instrument of unbelievable torture: INRH: The King of the Jews. He was hastily buried in a borrowed tomb, and the powers that be thought they had restored order.
How wrong they were. Jesus' resurrection on Easter Day, his forty days of teaching to his renewed followers who believed him dead but saw him alive- over five hundred of them- is something I believe really happened, and in which we can truly trust. Jesus himself did not promise days of cloudless sunshine- he was a realist as much as the living hope of better things- but the promise is that one day, he will come again, and then all mankind will see him, and things truly will be better, not just for ten years but for all time. It's about the only promise we can really trust; therefore, I at least will take up my cross for the man of the cross not just on a warm May day at election time, but every day.