The National Picture

There is, plainly, a view now gaining sharper expression That the language of responsibility May itself have become a kind of shelter That what had once sounded like seriousness Has, for some, come to sound like managed diminishment Whether this reflects a deep structural realignment Or merely a heightened demand for rhetorical clarity Is not yet entirely... separable In any case, the task of explaining the electorate to itself Has lately attracted no shortage of volunteers Good evening A volatile but legible picture is beginning to emerge Though of course it remains too early to say anything definitive Except, perhaps, the definitive things we are already saying A map lights up A phrase is found A number drops A tone goes round A seat runs close A graph runs wide A host declares A trend implied A spokesman blinks A camera nods A panel speaks Like minor gods A country splits By ward and screen And we explain What it must mean What does it mean What does it tell us What is the mood beneath the swing Who owns the night Who broke the pattern Who gets to say what voters mean Message, movement, margin, mood Historic, sobering, worse than good Too soon to tell But clear enough A soft support is hardening up Signal, story, surge, collapse A nation rendered into maps Talk faster Frame first Say "the public" like a single burst A swing is called A deeper truth A stumble gets Rebranded "youth" A silence in Three million homes Becomes a "late Decisive" tone The lower third Declares a shift The wording lands The numbers lift The facts arrive In pieces still We cut them down To fit the bill How should we read it How should we phrase it What's the underlying story here What's the real Not just the visible What can we make the country hear Message, movement, margin, mood Fragmented, settled, rough but viewed Too close to call Yet plain to see The national picture points to "we" Swing and warning Shock and drift A tired electorate finds its shift Talk smoother Cut clean Turn a heap of signals to a scene Turnout lower Yes, but still Constitutionally sufficient will Support thinner Granted that The seat result will settle that Not everyone Has come to choose Some only came To calculate what they could lose Keep it moving Name the trend The country loves a proper end The centre slips The flanks take air The old vote peels The cameras stare A plan appears A line is found A queue becomes A moral sound A door A threshold Frame Control At last a phrase To hold the whole Message, movement, margin, mood The Plan is landing, broad but good Not just policy More than that A way to force the map to chat Historic, fractured, thin, immense A verdict short on confidence Talk louder Mean less Make the graph explain the emptiness And joining us now, to discuss what the country is really saying are six people who have already decided