I find people who are not election nerds often imagine that election nerds really *enjoy* them. We do not. Elections generally look worse the closer you examine them, but you can’t look away, and you feel you must understand them as well as you can.

But mostly they are times of fear (especially for vulnerable pals, marginalised groups, the climate, etc), moments when rights are threatened and past progress is at risk, and an endless series of opportunities to have one’s hopes crushed.

I think people also imagine election nerds believe in the ballot box above all. Some do; I do not. It’s just one tool, and it will never deliver much on its own without community activism and issue campaigns and radical trade unionism and all that.

Essentially elections - when you’re on the left - are like watching Scotland play football except with real world consequences.