Tomorrow will be the final proof that a new generation of decision-makers are in charge, and that an entirely different generation has to adapt to the lonely land of frustration of opposition.
Tomorrow will be proof that opposition isn't worth it.
Tomorrow we will be reminded of our sacrifices. The struggle of our internal conflict between how we might wish the world to be and what we know we are capable of making it into. The energy we placed into believing that we could win the argument because people believed our argument. We delivered leaflets and speeches, oiled the machinery of politics with our commitment and passion. Made friends. Made enemies. Made lives with loved ones, while a shared experience enveloped us.
It was the shared experience of being part of something important but, crucially, also something that could make changes, make decisions - say something and make it happen. And we did it all with a sense of responsibility.
And tomorrow we will be cruelly reminded that responsibility lies with someone else.
We told them tomorrow would come. We told them that there was an insidious under belly to the Conservatives. That they were pretending to be reasonable, fronted by a reasonable guy - but the reason they claimed so many times to have had "a clause 4 moment" was because they never actually challenged and changed themselves in the same way we had.
Today I was told by a trade union official that the people have forgotten how to demonstrate. I think they have forgotten how to vote.
Our generation believed we had triangulated out conflict, triangulated in cohesion and consensus. Blair and Clinton seemed to be the end of ideological headbutting. Then came Bush, now Cameron - and the result? Demonstrations and millions of people who regret the way they voted.
They bought into the consensus; that we are all of-the-centre; that no-one in a position of power would introduce massive change just for ideological reasons.
Ideologies mean competing non-compatible ideas. That's why tomorrow everything will change. Institutions, assumptions, traditions - all torn down in the name of the new ideology. Tomorrow we have to start again.
Validity of public services - start again
Value of higher education to the wider populace - start again
Value of helping your neighbour because they are poorer than you - start again
Value of investing in our communities and localities - start again
The country will pay the price of this new ideology - 250,000 jobs. 250,000 people will know the pain of unemployment, insecurity, broken marriages and mortgage foreclosure.
Tomorrow consensus leaves us. Tomorrow we will enter a new world, and we must learn to win the argument again. The task seems horrendous and momentous, intimidating even. But we must. We have a responsibility.
SH
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