THE ELECTION

NO ASYLUM FROM POLITICS

Anthony Daniels finds out

what the mad think of the election candidates

IS IT possible anywhere in the kingdom to escape from election fever? A lunatic asylum seemed as good a place to try as any.

I was mistaken. The staff, at least, were highly politicised. The walls of the smoke- filled nurses' station, to which the nurses often retreated before the onslaughts of the mad, were covered with newspaper articles, mainly from the Guardian, about the decline of the health service and Aids as a feminist issue. There were also printed invitations from one of the unions to 'join the resistance'. The depth of anti- Government feeling was evident. Every- one in the room was expected as a matter of course to vote Labour.

I attended one of the many interminable staff meetings that occur in mental hos- pitals, ostensibly to 'assess programmes', `integrate services', 'examine feelings' and so forth, but actually — and entirely understandably — to escape from the lunatics for a time.

On the blackboard were the literary remains of a seminar for nurses on problem solving. Under the heading 'Problem Solv- ing' were the following rubrics: assessing, planning care, solving problems, im- plementing plans, evaluating care, being systematic.

One of the items on the agenda con- cerned the smoking of cigarettes during meetings. The health purists had banned it.

But did people realise that if nurses were not allowed to smoke during meetings they would have only ten minutes per shift in which to smoke? Since smoking is to psychiatric nurses what valium is to house- wives, the matter was serious.

More serious still was the question of the hospital fete. The problem was that Jeffrey Archer had been asked to open it. For some reason this was thought to provide the Tories with a grossly unfair electoral advantage. I could think of several reasons why Jeffrey Archer should not have been asked, but political affiliation was not one of them.

Then one of the nurses objected to what she called 'the concept of a fête'. Hospit- als, she said, should be provided with enough funds without resorting to private charity. Under Labour, there would be no need of civic-mindedness: the government would ensure public virtue. And of course, nurses would be better off. Strangely, it was the unanimous belief that only home- owners and shareholders voted for self- interest.

Meanwhile, in the patients' meeting, a young man who had punched a police- man's teeth in was holding forth about the election. He hoped no one in the room was going to vote Tory: he would be obliged never to speak to them again. He was voting for Neil Kinnock, that is if people compulsorily detained in mental hospitals were allowed to vote (they aren't). Asked why he would vote for Mr K., he said it was because he was against Nato.

`Nato's evil, evil, evil,' he said.

He confessed he had harboured a plan — before admission — to bring about world peace by pumping poison gas into all Nato installations. But he said he now thought perhaps this had not been a very good idea after all. In psychiatric jargon, this is known as insight.

Another patient was asked about the election. He replied it didn't matter to him because he was going to kill himself.

Later, a Labour Party worker came to the ward to ensure that voluntary patients — especially those from marginal constitu- encies — knew of their democratic rights. Apparently he thought a high turnout of lunatics would favour Labour.

But it was in the day hospital that most interest was stirred. The day hospital was a Nissen but to which patients discharged to `the community' (i.e. to filthy and isolated bed-sits) came daily for a cup of tea and tablets. After their initial reluctance to speak had been overcome, many voiced strong opinions.

The occupational therapist, a reputed radical activist, took a quick poll of the patients.

'Since she's been in, there's been no- thing but fighting.'

`She's promised lots of things. She might do them this time.'

'What makes you think that?' `She's older now.'

`I don't like Labour. They're always on strike.'

`We can have our opinions even if we're mental — they can't take that away from us.'

One of the patients was so tormented by the thought she might vote for the wrong party she resolved not to vote at all. Another, a former poet, had written to the three party leaders asking for their policy on the arts. He was also after a grant so he could continue writing. He was also wor- ried about the poor in Africa.

`I'd like to do what Bob Geldof did, only they'd accuse me of being a schizophrenic.'

He had also written to the Pope, but had not so far received a reply.

`If you ask me, the Pope just talks blabble,' said another patient.

A lady in an egg-stained dress thought highly of her MP and would vote for him again — she was asked why.

`He goes up to London to Parliament quite a lot.'

A man who had previously remained silent said he would not vote for any of the candidates because the man who should be prime minister, Enoch Powell, was not standing.

"E'd've got rid of all them foreigners long ago.'

The other candidates, he said, wanted to ban the bomb. But he thought you couldn't trust the Russians.

`We didn't 'ave no ammunition in 1939 . .' he continued.

`Bugger all,' someone interjected, sotto voce.

. so Macmillan 'ad to go over to Germany to ask for time.'

In his opinion, Mrs Thatcher ought to have had the Ban-the-Bomb marchers whipped. As for criminals, they ought to be hanged.

`What would you do with Ernest Saun- ders, then?'

`I'd 'ang 'im. I would, I'd 'ang 'im.' `Fast or slowly?'

`Slowly.'

As for foreigners, they were a bad lot. The Japs had grown rich by buying British Leyland. Foreigners had also brought Aids.

`Well I think Aids is a good thing,' remarked a patient who had distanced himself somewhat from the rest.

'Why?'

`Well it stops all this mucking around.' `What's wrong with mucking around?' `You get Aids and die.'

In his essay 'The President's Speech', the neurologist Oliver Sacks argued that cer- tain brain-damaged patients were better able than average Americans to discern the shallowness and insincerity of Ronald Reagan's inaugural address. I don't claim there is superior political wisdom to be found in mental hospitals; but sometimes it seems to me not more lacking there than elsewhere, either.