Yesterday mum wore black.

“I’m in mourning” she said, as I woke up to a series of BBC and Guardian notifications buzzing on my mobile phone.

Devastation ran through my body as I tried to rack my brain, alongside millions of others, as to how the polls got it so wrong?

I’m not going to pretend I know anything about Politics and our supposedly democratic system, but David Cameron promised to “bring our country together”, so let me just remind (re-jog) your memory as to what exactly that means. The Human Rights Act will be gone, the last of the social housing sold off and the NHS speedily forced into the private sector. Epic cuts will tear into the public services (including £12 billion cuts to benefits), whilst inequality and child poverty increase. There will be more so-called “flexible” zero hour contracts and temping jobs, public sector pay will fall 8% behind private pay, whilst top tax is cut for the highest earners. David Cameron does not just have the political will to tear our welfare to shreds and widen the wealth gap: he has a mandate.

The future is bleak. And I’m scared.

Why is it that people who went to University for free, lived long from a strong and prosperous NHS, and were able to buy cheap and affordable homes, feel like they can deny all this to our generation?

This was the second time I was able to vote in a General Election, and that sudden rush of exhilaration which came with posting my ballot into the box was quickly depleted once the exit polls were released, and I realised there will always be a Tory MP in my constituency.  My satisfaction which came with voting for what I believed in, voting with my morals in tack, could not endure Cameron standing and grinning victoriously on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, or another five years of George Osborne and Michael Gove. God help us all.

Instead of making the final edits to my last ever University assignment due next week, I have spent the past 48 hours in despair, trying to figure out in my head how on earth this has happened. The Conservatives have pushed our nation into a state of fear, and what was once a party of the left could not compete against the political elites shouting merciless messages of austerity.

Yesterday my mum wore black and a lot of chocolate was consumed.

Today, she doesn’t want to watch the news or read the newspaper with the caption “And then there was one” in bold. Perhaps we can’t overthrow the government today. Or, even understand how or whether the Labour party is going to sort itself out and provide a real, electable alternative to the politics of fear and austerity. But we can try to be positive. Because otherwise there is just despair, and we’ll never win with that.