A month ago, English flags proliferated throughout the country as England edged closer and closer to the Euro Cup final. The ubiquity of English flags wasn’t something I was particularly used to, and I had to constantly remind myself that it was related to football every time I winced at seeing a St. George’s flag placed in the corner of a window.Two weeks prior to this, Labour had won a landslide majority after a gruelling 14 years of austerity, pandemics, lockdowns, neighboring wars, and the cost-of-living crisis, not to mention prime ministerial precarity. Despite what I suspect is the general public losing more and more confidence in governments and even questioning the effect their vote could have, as shown by one of the lowest turnout rates at 60 percent, maybe the glimmer of hope that the English football team was showing hinted that perhaps things were going to change. Labour wasn’t perfect, but maybe an English Euro win was enough proof that a dark chapter was behind us and that a new, promising one awaited. As someone usually uninterested in football and who goes mute whenever my circle of friends brings up the topic, I found England’s loss completely devastating. I had built up this narrative in my head that it was symbolic of the election that had taken place a couple of weeks prior, with even Keir Starmer himself joking that “England have not missed a penalty…