Make It End. Please, Make It End

Good Christian folk should always take time to remember the less fortunate. So, as we draw near to the midpoint of the official election campaign – it is 25 days since Malcolm Turnbull visited the Governor-General and 31 sleeps to polling day – let us remember our Commonwealth cousins back in Blighty. They, too, are slogging their way through a marathon campaign, the the referendum on membership of the European Union.

Britain votes ten days before we do, in just over three weeks, on June 23. But while we entered into our official election period on May 8, the poor Poms have been in the trenches since February 20, when Prime Minister David Cameron left a special cabinet meeting, strode to the steps of 10 Downing Street and announced the referendum date.

While the EU referendum will have huge significance, a simple yes-or-no ballot is scarcely engaging as a proper election. And so there’s been much referencing of the American primaries and the slow processions to the party conventions and, finally, that first Tuesday in November.

Donald Trump’s bumper stickers, it has been noted by the Poms, read: “Trump 16: Make America Great Again”. Hillary Clinton’s declare: “I’m with Hillary”. But the Brits appear particularly taken with a non-partisan effort that simply says: “Giant Meteor 2016. Just end it already.” That sentiment is understandable, especially given the ever more rococo embellishments the supporters of the “remain” cause are adding daily to an already baroque scare campaign.

And it may have a certain resonance here, since the best the party representing the supposedly sensible side of politics can come up with is constant invocation of “Malcolm Turnbull’s economic plan for jobs and growth”.

Good Christian folk should seek to comfort the afflicted. And so, in the spirit of Christian charity, here’s where you can buy the “Giant meteor” sticker. They should arrive by polling day.