‘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.

QOSHE - No life / Why I’m selling my vote to my son - Lloyd Evans
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No life / Why I’m selling my vote to my son

5 1
15.03.2024

‘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........

© The Spectator


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