Sorry. Sorry I’m late. I’m not asleep yet. Yay! No, I wasn’t partying. I was working. I’m a professional. Unlike the American press, here in the UK, I think we journalists are a little more balanced. Yay! Oh, God. Ok, let’s try. After 14 years of Conservative rule, the Labour Party won a landslide victory in this morning’s UK election, and the Conservative Party suffered its worst defeat in history. Sorry. I’ll do it again without a smile. Sorry. I’m a professional. [PHONE DINGS] Well, the results are still coming in. Hey there. Dum, dum, dum, another person dead. Bloodshed. Total bloodshed. For six weeks, election fever has gripped the UK. Overall, it’s been very boring and predictable. Man with no coat getting drenched in the rain vs man falling in water vs man with a bin on his head. You see, the usual. But the people have spoken out. Meet our new Prime Minister. That’s right, Fifty Shades of Beige, Captain Whitebread, Sir Keir Starmer. “Change starts now.” Haven’t heard of him? Don’t worry, we haven’t either. If he were a vegetable, he’d be a potato. But a little boredom and nitpicking is just what the doctor ordered. It’s a case of can you find any doctor left in the UK who isn’t on strike for a fair and decent wage? [PHONE DINGS] Oh, this is cruel. It’s like the opening of Saving Private Ryan. I’d even feel sorry for them if they weren’t such awful people. Labour’s landslide victory this morning went against an international trend, a resolute rejection of right-wing populism – sort of. Yes. While countries like Italy, Hungary, France and Germany have had passionate love affairs with right-wing populism, and the US is seriously considering a second helping, here in the UK we’ve been in an abusive relationship with it for years. It started in 2008, when the unchecked greed of investment bankers brought Western economies to their knees. The Conservatives came to power in 2010. Then Prime Minister David Cameron declared “we’re all in the same boat” and implemented brutal austerity measures on the country’s poorest. Resentment and anger spread. And populism thrives where there is little else. And then Brexit. We gave every extremist in British politics a mainstream platform on which they could make promises to the world without fear of delivering. This is how populism works: promise the moon and give them a DVD of Apollo 13 instead. Soon the Looney Tunes who first pitched the idea were running psychiatric hospitals. First there was Emperor Palpatine’s cleaner, Theresa May. She knew Brexit was terrible but went along with it anyway. And didn’t last long. Then there’s Boris Johnson, populism on steroids, a man whose modus operandi is blatant lies and mad incompetence that makes him look like he’s got a comb over his hair. [EXPLETIVE] The kettle boiled. Then Liz Truss went populist and gave the richest people a £45 billion unfunded tax cut. This caused the economy to crash, the pound to collapse and mortgages for everyone to go through the roof. It was more like trickle-down Reaganomics. [EXPLETIVE] Economics has fallen from great heights. She lasted only six weeks in office. [PHONE DINGS] Ah, ex-PM Liz Truss lost her seat. Goodbye! And just when you thought there would be no more incompetent idiots entitled to run the country, here comes the richest PM in British history, billionaire hedge fund manager Rishi Sunak. We have finally come full circle and the UK is run by economic terrorists and disaster capitalists, propped up by charlatans and ambulance-driving politicians who are sucking every last drop of marrow out of the rotting carcass of the state while blaming immigrants and the poor for all the country’s woes. What have 14 years of Conservative populism and austerity got us? The UK economy is stagnating. Real wages are lower than they were a decade ago. A third of British children live in relative poverty. And there are more food banks than McDonald’s. Our health system is in shambles, our social welfare system is in shambles, and rapists are avoiding prison because our prisons are full. So this is an extinction-level event for the Conservative Party. It’s like a really bad “Jurassic Park” movie, and like the original “Jurassic Park.” So while Keir Starmer may be as charismatic as lukewarm unseasoned tofu, going back to a centrist, socially centre-left, fiscally centre-right, potato-led party feels like a radical turnaround. Boring is the new radical. Non-radical is the new radical. The truth is that Starmer can’t be a radical. He has no money left. But not promising things he knows he can’t deliver is a rejection of populism in itself. Unfortunately, Labour promises nothing. Reading Labour’s manifesto is as exciting as when you forget your phone and have to relieve yourself while reading the back of a bleach bottle. Labour’s tax and spending promises are tiny, less than what the Conservatives promised. And therein lies the problem: when the system fails people, people support politicians who promise to burn it down. Enter Nigel Farage, who is as untrustworthy as an unlicensed butcher. You may have seen him speak at a Donald Trump rally. Farage has been a unique stench in British politics for the past few years. His Reform Party may have only won a handful of seats last night, but Farage has already been appointed unofficial leader of the opposition, and many experts say he could be the next prime minister even before the new prime minister sits down at his desk and takes out his pen. Starmer should be careful. So should people like Joe Biden. It’s not enough to just ignore him. If Starmer can’t turn the tide, save public services from the brink of collapse and put more money in workers’ pockets, it will be just five years before populists take over the country again. Keir Starmer could be a step in the right direction, or it could just mean a reprieve. If so, the British political landscape has never been so bleak. It’s depressing. I felt good when I got here.
