Looking for the Small Victories In a By-Election Gone Wrong

Regarding the by-election in the United Kingdom between Nigel "How Much Is 5 Million In British Money" Farage and Count Binface that happened this week...

Sigh. GODDAMMIT CLACTON VOTERS, YOU HAD ONE JOB (via Alexandra Topping with The Guardian (UK)).

Dawn had long broken in the Essex town of Clacton-on-Sea when the results for the byelection came in. After a gruelling count, an atmosphere of deep exhaustion had settled over the room. Even the man with a dustbin on his head looked weary.

As it was declared that Nigel Farage had won, as expected, there was no cheering in the room, which had been boycotted by the Reform UK leader and his supporters; instead there was only an overwhelming sense of futility.

Farage forced the byelection at the start of July in an attempt take control of a narrative tide that had turned against him. After the Guardian revealed he had received a £5m personal gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire, in April 2024, he had been dogged by questions about his financial backing. Other revelations followed and questions mounted...

And while the people of Clacton did back Farage again, it was no overwhelming victory. He won 22,239 votes, 63.34% of the vote. Convincing, yes, but significantly short of the 72% won by David Davis in 2008 when he resigned his seat and stood again as a protest over the issue of civil liberties.

With no other mainstream options, the parody candidate Count Binface, was Farage’s nearest competitor, winning 9,455 votes, or one in four of the votes cast. In his “victory speech” posted on X, he noted that this was a 10,000% increase on the 95 votes he managed against Andy Burnham in the Makerfield byelection. “A new dawn has broken, has it not?” he wrote, echoing Tony Blair’s 1997 victory speech. “Literally, because it’s past 6:30 in the morning here in Clacton-on-Sea.”

If there's any good news, it's in the "At least Farage suffered" category. A better measurement of how poorly Farage did this by-election is to look at the results of the more formal election that happened in 2024: In that election Farage secured 21,225 votes, which means he barely garnered a thousand more voters (22,239) who showed up this time around. It's a meager increase in a field where the only legitimate electoral threat was the court jester wearing the trash can. 

The overall vote count in 2024 was 45,958 people showing up, a better turnout than what showed for 2026 with 35,111. Farage did not prove himself a greater draw nor a good incumbent: Indeed, a large chunk of voters refused to show up for what was basically a circus. Without the major parties - Labour, Tories - and the viable third parties like Lib Dems and Greens to give Farage any targets, all he had going for him was a bland, racist campaign against "The Establishment" which exposed the reality that in this by-election he was the Establishment candidate.

The by-election also didn't save Farage from the fate he was facing when he resigned and forced this whole farce. He's still under investigation for his alleged financial misdeeds (from Rowena Mason and Peter Walker, also The Guardian (UK)):

Nigel Farage’s attempt to draw the sting from inquiries into his financial affairs appeared to have backfired on Friday as the standards watchdog reopened its investigation and MPs from all sides condemned the needless byelection.

The Reform UK leader declared victory in the Clacton vote as he was returned with an increased majority and gained more votes than in 2024, saying he had “stuck two fingers up at the entire political establishment”.

However, parliament’s standards commissioner immediately reopened an investigation into whether he should have declared a series of gifts provided to him shortly before the last general election.

These include a £5m personal gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, first revealed by the Guardian, and further financial support from his friend and convicted fraudster George Cottrell.

I'm not a political expert on how elections work in the UK, but I doubt they are going to let Farage resign again and force another by-election so soon. From what I've read, the investigation can lead to his suspension from Parliament (not outright removal or criminal arrest) and if it's longer than 10 days it would trigger a recall petition and if successful another by-election. However, in this scenario he won't control the by-election, he'll be publicly exposed for his sins, and the major parties will jump in with better odds - probably for the Tories - to defeat him then.

It might depend on how severe the investigations against Farage would go, if it's bad enough for the legal system to charge him criminally (given Farage's arrogance and knee-jerk reactions to the matter, he's hiding something worse). He could try to make himself a political martyr and run again for the seat in a borough that's "safe" for him, but Farage has made so many political enemies across the landscape that he'll likely lose.

In sadder news, the world could have had an elected trash bin in the British Parliament. Millions are mourning the lost opportunity. /weeps

Pop Goes a Weasel?

I admit, if there is any kind of crazy political drama, I am there with the popcorn.

via GIPHY

Over in the UK, the drama kicked up a notch with Reform Racist leader Nigel Farage trying to wiggle his way out of a financial scandal by resigning and re-running for his seat (via Daniel Boffey at the Guardian (UK)):

Flanked by Union Jack flags, with a spectacular view of the City of London behind him, Nigel Farage said he had “never been angrier”. In an address that was billed as a “statement on my future in public life”, the leader of Reform UK, the rightwing, anti-immigration party that remains ahead in most national polls but which has been dipping recently, said he would not tolerate any more of it.

“It seems to me that the establishment have now decided that they can’t beat us fairly, so they’ve chosen to use foul means,” Farage said.

He was referring to the Guardian’s revelation that he had received an undeclared £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne as well as the more recent allegations – not denied – that Farage had also taken undeclared funding for his staffing, security and housing from George Cottrell, a convicted criminal and Gloucester-born aristocrat.

Parliament is investigating whether the £5m gift, made to Farage within 12 months of him becoming an MP in summer 2024, could reasonably be thought by others to relate to his “parliamentary or political activities” and was therefore in need of being declared. He denies it. There is pressure for the authorities to look into the Cottrell money too on the same grounds.

But this sort of scrutiny of the evidence by independent professionals was not at all Farage’s preferred solution, it transpired. Instead, Farage was going to resign as the member of parliament for Clacton, a faded seaside town in Essex, and then seek re-election all over again. “I have decided that the people of Clacton will be the judges of my actions,” he said. “This will be a people versus the establishment byelection...”

From what I'm gathering about British politics, Farage's move to force a by-election will delay the criminal investigations but not end them. It's frustrating that there doesn't seem to be a criminal penalty for the financial evasions he's allegedly done, but that seems to be a problem across a lot of republican monarchies...

Should the parliamentary investigation subsequently find against Farage, the worst sanction for him could be another byelection should 10% of the constituency sign a petition seeking one. Would there be an appetite for a second byelection given that he had won the first? Does he limit the damage by forcing the issue now? Perhaps. Much, though, depends on whether Farage, an undoubtedly skilled communicator, can convince the British public, and not just those in Clacton, that this is not just a cynical ploy.

Farage was quick to close down one line of attack by offering to cover the costs of the byelection. But the other political parties have not been slow in calling out Farage’s announcement as what Keir Starmer described as a “desperate stunt”.

“It’s obvious why he is doing it,” the prime minister said. “He is up to his neck in sleaze. Politics should be about improving the lives of millions of people, not about personal gain, not about hiding dodgy donations, and I think the public will see this for exactly what it is.”

A good amount of political punditry is looking at Farage's actions as a ploy to avoid accountability. There's also the factor of how Farage seems eager to use this by-election to "debate" his opponents to make them look bad not just in that district but at the national level.

In response, it's looking like the major parties are avoiding that trap, refusing to run other candidates and force Farage to stand alone at the podium forced to answer questions about his financials instead of railing against immigrants (again). 

The governing Labour party, the Conservative official opposition and other rival parties, including the Lib Dems and Restore, the party further to Reform’s right, which was founded by Rupert Lowe MP, one of Reform’s MPs until a nasty falling out with Farage, have all ruled out standing in the byelection.

“We are not going to participate in a Reform-sponsored media circus over the summer months that is designed to puff up Farage’s ego and deflect away from wholly fair questions over why he has concealed such vast and irregular financial donations,” said Lowe.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said his party was “calling on all parties to stand aside and refuse to give oxygen to Farage’s vanity project”. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said her party would not participate in any byelection triggered as a result of “the standards investigation into Nigel Farage’s fishy finances”.

It doesn't give Farage much of an opportunity to punch at other parties if he's up there alone. Well, almost alone.

In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, the comedian Jon Harvey, also known as Count Binface, offered his candidacy as a unifying force. “Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Greens: I demand you stand down in Clacton,” Count Binface wrote. “I will be a unity candidate and pledge to build at least one affordable house. Nigel Farage says he wants The People versus the Establishment. So be it. Leave him to me.”

It should be noted that Farage only won Clacton in 2024 with 46 percent, a bit below a solid majority of voters. It should also be noted that election cycle displayed a lot of anger towards the Conversative Tories who had been in power for almost 14 years, mismanaging the United Kingdom with failed austerity measures as well as bolluxing up Brexit. There is a serious question if Farage's win percentage came from a lot of angry Tory voters punishing their party back then, and if they'll be in the mood to support Farage now he's had a year of his own failures to perform to disillusion them.

Checking the website MPDataUK, their summary lists him as of today (July 8th) casting "169 votes from 537 eligible divisions, representing a participation rate of 31.47%, and ranks last among Reform UK MPs in voting participation." He shows up more often for debates, but still ranks (570th of 650 MPs) in the bottom 10 percent for participation. He's rarely shown up for the Q&As - the open floor debates where the opposition party can rip into the PM, and get ripped in return - and I don't know if Parliament has a committee breakdown like the US Congress but I'm sure Farage doesn't show up for those either.

Farage is clearly a "leader" who enjoys the perks of office but refuses to do the actual JOB.

As much as Clacton being a "safe" district, Farage is running a high risk of exposing himself - especially these financial scandals - at the worst possible time.

He's also running the risk of the one thing a national-level party leader has to avoid: the risk of getting humiliated. If it's just a campaign between Farage and Count Binface... well, Binface as a relatively silly candidate can cause genuine harm. Not only by avoiding the debates that Farage would want - because Binface isn't representing the major parties, Farage can't hammer him as an "Establishment" figure - but by mocking Farage on the debates that Farage can't answer back without revealing his hypocrisy.

The recent tradition in the UK for Raving Looney candidates - under the general term of "novelty" or "joke" candidates - can arguably trace their origins back to a proud monarchial tradition of the Court Jester. Before democracies and republics rose up to challenge unitary rule of an elite, the courts would employ house entertainers granted the privilege to perform and mock about current events and personages without punishment (it was viewed as a means of keeping the mighty humbled). As the need for jesters declined, the importance of outside critics rose to where we see newspaper cartoonists and stand-up comedians fulfilling the jester's privilege for the citizenry to enjoy.

Count Binface - along with the other Looneys - is the direct descendant of the jester. (This might explain why few novelty candidates - well, except for the Libertarians - ever appear in US elections, as we've been a democratic republican system from the beginning: Our political commentary comes through the history of minstrels and stand-ups to this day. I digress) As a jester on the stage next to Farage, Binface has the opportunity to directly mock and satirize someone who is serious about his anti-immigrant, anti-EU, anti-"nice to people" stances.

This is Great Britain, sir. As much as they have stiff upper lips and "Keep Calm And Carry On" as their mantras, they also treat sarcasm as a deadly weapon in that country.

Farage might not even survive.

Prepare for Count Binface. The kingdom - nay, the world - awaits.

Coping With the Brexit Blues Ten Years On

I've been blogging long enough to honor 10-year anniversaries like Brexit. What I wrote back then:

It was supposed to be a throwaway moment: it was something Prime Minister Cameron promised to do last year during the Parliamentary elections as a way to keep voters from bolting to the anti-EU, anti-immigrant UKIP (aka British Trumpshirts) during a potentially tight run. The expectations - and the polling - kept pointing to a tough but clean win to Remain with the EU, because honestly most of the elites in politics and the media believed the voters wouldn't be stupid enough to commit economic suicide.

And then they counted the votes...

The British Pound dropped to a 30-year low compared to the US dollar. In about an hour it dropped faster than a blue whale without a parachute.

To say that the global markets went into panic mode AT THAT MOMENT and remained so well into today would be an understatement.

And so here I was, sitting at home watching all of this on an Internet I swore I wasn't going to pay attention to, and this was pretty much the one thought bouncing through my head:

YOU TOSSERS! YOU HAD ONE JOB!

You Brits could have retained some stability in all three major areas of public concern: your economy, your culture, your government. All three are now burning in the dumpster fire...

Prime Minister David Cameron went in one hour from being one of the most powerful men on the planet - Prime Minister ranks somewhere below President of the United States and slightly above t.e Actor Currently Playing The Doctor - to resigning from office in utter humiliation. Few Prime Ministers fell so low so fast. The resulting battle among Conservatives for the new leadership spot will likely spill over into a broken government, forcing a new round of elections sooner than the required five-year cycle...

Ten years on, we can see it got worse than that for the Tories: a revolving door of PMs - Teresa May who resigned in disgrace, to Boris Johnson who resigned in humiliating disgrace, to Liz Truss who resigned in utter humiliating disgrace, to Rishi Sunak who oversaw the Conservatives' worst electoral defeat since the 19th Century - as none of them could figure out a smooth exit from the European Union even if they wanted to (and in Boris' case, he eagerly pushed Britain out the airlock).

Brexit as an economic fiasco for the UK is so deep a problem that the Labour Party taking over in 2024 still hasn't figured out their own solutions for it, and became one of several factors in the recent resignation of their Prime Minister Keir Starmer just yesterday.

During my write-up for that article, I didn't have much to say about Brexit's effects as most of the coverage on Starmer's imminent departure focused on other woes. However, I did refer to an article from The Atlantic, a deep dive into the aftermath of Brexit and how it's sunk the UK's economy to the level of... well, the state of Mississippi (article by Idrees Kahloon):

Who broke Britain? Someone—or something—must have. The past 18 years, enough time for a whole lost generation to be born and brought up, have yielded nothing but stagnation and mass disillusionment. In 2007, before the global financial crisis, Britain was at its postimperial zenith. Median household income had just surpassed that of Germany. A pound was worth more than $2, and London was arguably displacing New York as the center of international banking.

But since then, Britain has been left behind. The country’s output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state—and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London...

One generation ago, Britain was a major global power; today, it is a middling one, gripped by sclerosis. Taxation is at the highest level since World War II, yet public services have deteriorated. The National Health Service, the celebrated pillar of the British cradle-to-grave welfare state, has a backlog of 6 million patients—almost a tenth of the population—waiting for treatment. The health service now has to spend more money settling maternity-malpractice claims than it does on actually providing maternity care. Many Brits can neither obtain an appointment with a publicly funded dentist nor afford a private one...

Some in Britain blame rotten luck—the 2008 financial crash, the coronavirus pandemic, an energy crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine. But other countries endured these challenges too. What differentiated Britain was its self-sabotaging responses to these and other problems. Brexit is the most famous example, but hardly the only one. Bad choices, beginning just after the financial crisis, begot worse ones...

The country’s downward slide has been consistent in one respect: As Britain has become more and more aware of its diminishment, it has retreated ever more fully into a defensive crouch. Politics have become zero-sum, descending into fights over who has robbed whom. Suspicion has fallen, above all, on immigrants, whom both major parties have turned against. There is still an enduring strain of British exceptionalism, quieter and more understated than the American version, which suggests that by retreating inward, Britain can make itself great again. Astonishingly, or perhaps predictably, it is growing stronger as the country’s problems get worse.

In fairness, the 2008 financial crisis hit Britain especially hard. In the 1990s, both the Tories and Tony Blair’s “New Labour” Party made the same bet: Britain was to be a postindustrial, services-based economy, anchored in finance. Tax receipts from a booming London would be redistributed to lagging regions in the old industrial heartland, helping to renew them. Then came 2008, and London’s financial industry cratered.

But the government’s actions during and after the crisis compounded the damage. Rather than increase spending to revive depressed demand, as modern Keynesians would counsel, the government, then led by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, opted to slash budgets as revenue plunged. The theory was that fiscal discipline—cutting spending more sharply than Britain’s peer countries—would inspire confidence and spur growth. At the time, deficits and debt were seen as immoral; unlike profligate Greece, Britain would manage its affairs prudently.

The promised growth did not materialize, and austerity left scars that linger still...

Conservatives, if one looks back to moments like the Great Depression, do not buy into Keynesian policies. The problem is, even when their austerity measures clearly falter they refuse to change tactics, and instead double-down on the blame-shifting.

Austerity was felt most harshly by those who were already suffering after deindustrialization. The welfare state had partially compensated the losers from globalization. When it abruptly shrank—because the masters of the universe had miscalculated—anger erupted upward, at British elites, and also outward, at European migrants, who were competing for jobs and public services. It was because of this political pressure that Cameron made another fateful decision: to hold the Brexit referendum in 2016. This was a gambit; Cameron expected the vote to fail. He did not want to leave the European Union, but he wanted to arrest the rise of figures such as Nigel Farage, the longtime gadfly of British politics, who had been campaigning for withdrawal from the EU for decades. Left-behind Britain, the places especially harmed by austerity cuts, voted overwhelmingly to leave. The morning after he lost the referendum, Cameron resigned, ushering in a period of political instability that has now lasted a decade, and shows no sign of ending...

I recommend you go and read Kahloon's article in full, because he goes into a lot more detail about the decline of industry in the more remote parts of England - everything outside of London - as well as the rise of Farage's latest political farce Reform (he abandoned UKIP when it got too overtly racist) even as much of the Brexit destruction is due to Farage's efforts.

So how does this all relate to Mississippi?

If you don't know, Mississippi is one of the poorest and most broken-down states in the Union. The roads and bridges are some of the worst in terms of safety and condition. Half the state suffers from sustained poverty for longer than 20 years. It's in the bottom five of worst states to live in.

A good example is the condition of the state's own capital Jackson, where infrastructure has broken down completely and there's no clean water (via Drew Costley and Emily Wagster Pettus with AP News, published through PBS Newshour):

But the crisis in the city of Jackson isn't over, even if its boil-water advisory was lifted on Thursday (in 2022). While the state plans to stop handing out free bottled water at sites around the city Saturday night, the city said water pressure still hasn't been fully restored, and state health officials said lead in some pipes remains so worrisome that pregnant women and young children should still use bottled water...

Other residents told The Associated Press on Friday that their water remains too discolored to count on, so now they'll have to rely on water distribution by community-run charities or buy water again themselves, adding insult to injury.

Jackson had already been under a state health department boil-water notice for a month when torrential rain fell in August, flooding the Pearl River and overwhelming the treatment system. Water pressure abruptly dropped, emptying faucets for days.

How did this happen? Residents, politicians, experts and activists say systemic racism is the root cause.

Jackson's population has declined since 1980, a decade after the city's schools began integrating. Many white families left for the suburbs, leaving less revenue to maintain the infrastructure. Middle class Black people then moved out to escape urban decay and rising crime. State and federal spending never made up the difference.

"The legacy of racial zoning, segregation, legalized redlining have ultimately led to the isolation, separation and sequestration of racial minorities into communities (with) diminished tax bases, which has had consequences for the built environment, including infrastructure," said Marccus Hendricks, an associate professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland.

Heather McTeer Toney worked to clean up discolored tap water as mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, before serving as the Environmental Protection Agency's southeast regional administrator from 2014 to 2017. Now she works on environmental justice issues nationwide for the Environmental Defense Fund. She said many majority-minority communities lack consistent access to clean water.

"Any community that is suffering from lack of infrastructure maintenance is dealing with the same problem, maybe just on a different scale," Toney said. "But across the nation, with .... poor communities that are often Black, brown, Indigenous and on the frontlines of the climate crisis, we see the same thing happening over and over again."

There have been studies over the decades highlighting how pervasive racism is when it comes to dealing with poverty, improving living standards, and community developments. I can't find it now, but one of my coworkers at the North Regional Library back in the 1990s showed me a survey where they polled white folks asking if they preferred taking a five percent pay increase if it meant blacks would get a two percent increase, or taking a two percent pay cut if it meant blacks would get a five percent pay cut... and a majority of whites went with the pay cut. I'd love to find the source for that again, because it highlights the viciousness and irrationality of racism: Under normal rules of economic theory, everyone would take the pay increase; but because of racism, whites will take the pay cut if it means blacks get it worse.

The racism holding down Mississippi is now the racism holding down the United Kingdom, and it was recognized even as the Brexit vote blew up everything (via Leah Donnella at NPR):

So why did the U.K. vote for something so politically and economically disruptive? Some say race has a lot to do with it — specifically, the racial tension that has resulted from the U.K.'s recently welcoming in record numbers of immigrants. In 2015, 630,000 foreign national migrants came to the U.K. from both inside and outside the EU. This year, the U.K. has ushered in an additional 333,000.

The campaign to get the U.K. to leave the EU (also known as the "Leave" campaign) was spearheaded by the right-wing, populist UK Independence Party, or UKIP. The party, led by Member in the European Parliament Nigel Farage, says that the EU "means the end of the UK as an independent, self-governing nation with its own government and its own borders."

For months, UKIP has fought for the United Kingdom's independence from the EU — some say by capitalizing on racially charged animus toward immigrants. In the Washington Post, writer Anyusha Rose points to the Leave campaign as evidence that in the U.K., "racism is no longer racism — it's legitimate opinion."

By 2019, the effects of racism in the Brexit decision were more clear (via the BBC):

Racism and race-related hate crime has increased since the 2016 Brexit referendum, with officers appointed to deal with resultant "tensions".

Three of the four Welsh police forces reported rises in the last five years, figures released to the BBC show.

Eryl Jones, from charity Show Racism the Red Card, said he believed Brexit had been a "major influence".

It comes as 24 community cohesion officers are being appointed by councils across Wales...

"Incidents of racism have gone up throughout the UK as well as in Wales since the campaign to leave the EU, " Mr Jones said.

"It's fairly obvious that Brexit has been a major influence..."

Home Office figures show hate crimes in England and Wales rising over the past five years - with a spike, it says, since 2016...

It's a simple equation: The racism spurs more poverty, and the poverty spurs more racism.

The only way the UK can break the cycle - to avoid the fate of Mississippi, which devolved into one of the poorest states as far back as the American Civil War, and which fought with gun and noose for decades to keep itself poor and racist - is to wake up to the horrors that anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence inflicts upon themselves, recognize where poverty is at its worst and spend like hell to undo the damage it leaves on families across the board, and look at rejoining their neighboring nations in an economic deal that would reinvigorate their dying industries at home.

Don't end up like Mississippi. Don't end up the trashy trailer park of nations on the European continent.

How To Lose A Kingdom Without Even Trying: UK 2026 Edition

And I thought American politics was a complete shitshow. What the hell, Great Britain? (via Lauren Frayer at NPR)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resigned as leader of the United Kingdom's governing Labour Party, clearing a path for the country's seventh prime minister in a decade.

Starmer said he will remain as caretaker prime minister until his party selects a new leader, asking his party to begin nominations on July 9.

Andy Burnham, the popular former mayor of Greater Manchester, England, confirmed on social media that he'll seek to succeed Starmer. Another potential contender, former U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, posted a letter saying he would back Burnham's bid. So Burnham could run for the Labour Party leadership — and ultimately prime minister — uncontested, and enter office in late July.

The center-left Labour Party was elected two years ago with a landslide majority in the U.K. Parliament. Since then, Starmer's personal approval ratings have slumped to a historic low. Polls show voters believe he failed to deliver palpable change after austerity and budget cuts under 14 years of previous Conservative Party rule. He was also criticized for appointing Peter Mandelson, a close friend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as British ambassador to Washington.

This is the seventh turnover at 10 Downing Street since David Cameron resigned ten years ago. At this point, just fucking promote Larry the Cat to PM.

At least Starmer lasted longer than Liz Truss, but considering it's less than two years since that huge electoral win in July 2024, this is not a great sign for Labour on how they're handling things in the UK.

I mean, look back at how things were that 4th of July:

I'm not sure how the Tories are going to convince themselves they know what they're doing after a massive shift in voter support like this. They had picked up a major victory in 2019 gaining an 80-seat majority, and by the next election are losing 170 seats. A comparable situation would be like the House Republicans getting their 6-seat majority in 2022 only to have the Democrats flip it to a 60 seat majority in 2024 (postscript: goddammit American voters)...

Next will be a question of how Labour is going to fix all the damage - the austerity economics getting out of the Great Recession, the various scandals over their tenure, and of course Brexit - this inept, corrupt Tory leadership has done since 2010.

And that was the thing: Starmer and the Labour Party had a huge mandate from their voters, a massive shift of control in Parliament that had to be an angry response from their nation over the decades-long failures of the Conservative Party. The mandate was obvious: Do Anything and Everything Opposite of What the Bloody Tories Did.

And then Starmer... kind of did nothing. Other than perform miscue after miscue, failing to push needed changes to the economy, and getting ensnared in scandals that were easily avoided (via Jill Lawless and Pan Pylas with AP News, but linked through PBS Newshour):

It's a precipitous downfall from July 4, 2024, when Starmer brought the center-left Labour Party back to power after 14 years, winning 411 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

Standing outside 10 Downing St. the next day, Starmer pledged to restore "respect to politics" and lead a government of "public service." After the chaos of the last years of Conservative rule, which saw a constant churn of scandal and the toppling of prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in quick succession, Starmer promised to lower the temperature and make politics a little bit more boring.

Some of the problems that felled him were baked into his victory, which was built on a wide but shallow base of support. Labour won a huge majority in Parliament but was backed by only 34% of voters — and many of those appeared motivated by anger at the Conservatives rather than enthusiasm for Labour. It's been termed the "loveless landslide."

This lack of excitement for his government was compounded by missteps. An early furor over accepting valuable gifts, including designer spectacles and Taylor Swift concert tickets, was followed by a series of policy U-turns, especially clumsy attempts to cut welfare spending that stirred anger in Labour ranks.

What ultimately destroyed his credibility was his appointment of Peter Mandelson to the plum post of the United Kingdom's ambassador to the U.S. It was an error of judgment he couldn't shake off.

Mandelson, a Labour Party elder statesman nicknamed the "Prince of Darkness," was seen as someone who could help Britain navigate U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. His trade expertise and comfort around the ultra-rich were considered major assets.

But the choice of Mandelson — who in 2003 called himself Epstein's "best pal" — backfired spectacularly when documents came to light in September 2025 showing how close his ties to Epstein had been. Starmer fired Mandelson, but further revelations in the following months plunged his leadership into crisis...

First elected to Parliament in 2015, Starmer was picked to lead and rebuild Labour five years later after the party's worst election result since 1935. Starmer dragged Labour toward the political center after taking over from veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, who led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019. Starmer ditched some of his predecessor's more left-wing policies and apologized for antisemitism that an internal investigation concluded had been allowed to spread under Corbyn.

Starmer's forensic and prosecutorial skills were on display in Parliament, where he tormented the three Conservative prime ministers he faced. He was especially scathing in attacks on Boris Johnson, who allowed parties inside Downing Street during the COVID-19 pandemic, in violation of the country's lockdown rules.

But being prime minister required a different skill set and Starmer often fell short, lacking the flexibility and political instincts that the job requires — at least on the domestic front.

He attracted a level of vitriol from some voters out of step with his managerial demeanor. Hard-right activists shouted crude abuse at protests, he alienated retirees and working-class families with attempts to cut welfare benefits and angered pro-Palestinian voters with a perceived reluctance to criticize Israel during the Gaza war...

A number of other things happened - and didn't happen - which condemned the Labour leadership. The overt attempts to pander to a "centrist" position alienated the left-leaning base and did nothing to draw the right-leaning voters away from the extremism of Farage. Above all, what ruined Starmer was inaction resolving the major political issue of the United Kingdom - Brexit - that politicians didn't even want to discuss while a growing majority of Brits hate it and want it gone.

For any deeper insight on Brexit, I read Chris Grey's Brexit blog: His observations a week back - during the theatrics of by-elections leading up to Starmer's resignation - are thorough.

After all, assuming that, as polls increasingly suggest is likely, Andy Burnham wins in Makerfield that seems likely to herald several weeks of a Labour leadership contest ending, potentially, with yet another new Prime Minister. That seems all the more possible with the resignation of the Defence Secretary yesterday, followed by that of the Armed Forces Minister, adding to the existing sense that Keir Starmer’s leadership is in crisis and its days are numbered. Perhaps a Burnham premiership would bring some fresh momentum to politics, and some impression of direction, but it’s hard to be optimistic about that, if only because not only are Britain’s problems deeper than its leader but they also tend to militate against any leader being effective...

That is frankly pitiful given that the reset was Labour’s central policy on what has been the defining political issue of the last decade, and that David Lammy, the then Shadow Foreign Secretary, said in 2023 that it would be Labour’s “number one” foreign policy priority if they came to power. It is all the more pitiful given the profound changes and dangers in international relations since then. And if it is true (which seems highly plausible) that it is agreeing a YMS which is holding things up then that is not just pitiful but shameful, in two ways. First because it shows a lack of realism, given that this was always the key EU requirement if there was to be a deal on the UK’s priorities. And secondly because it shows another of the ways that the government has chosen to be driven by the anti-immigration agenda of Reform.

The latter connects with the much deeper reason why the present moment is not just wearisome but one of despair and, even, fear. It is apparently now inevitable that every time there is a serious crime which has any connection with immigration it will be followed by street violence accompanied by a vicious, frenzied ‘debate’ conducted in terms framed by Nigel Farage and others on the far right, not least because major broadcasters, most importantly the BBC, are prone to adopt that framing. This is not simply an opinion on my part, or an evidence-free jibe: it flows directly from the plans the BBC drew up last year to win over Reform voters, who it feared were losing trust in its output, by changing both its news “story selection” and drama offerings so as to appeal to them...

This is part of why Starmer and Labour are struggling: They're fighting a Far Right fearmongering Narrative that their nation's own media deploys to the detriment of everyone, which drives the party to tack to a centrist spot that's not even centrist (it's racist. I digress). Regarding a murder case where "reverse racism" was tossed about creating disinfo and distrust, Grey noted:

In short, this case does not demonstrate the “two-tier policing” or the “anti-white prejudice” Farage claimed, in a preposterously self-important “emergency address” to the nation. Yet such claims had the unsurprising consequence of significant public disorder in Southampton, just as the furore after the Southport murders did (and, as in that case, the treatment of the rioters was treated as further evidence of two-tier policing). Equally unsurprisingly, it turned out that, far from being ‘ordinary decent people’ expressing their ‘legitimate concerns’, many of the Southampton ‘protestors’ were neo-Nazi activists, whilst one of the first to appear in court was a thug with a string of previous convictions for violence.

It has been suggested, not implausibly, that Farage was motivated to stir up, in his words, “pure, cold rage” partly as a distraction from the questions he has sought to avoid about his £5 million gift and partly to respond to the electoral threat from Rupert Lowe’s Restore party in the Makerfield by-election and the more general competition between the two men and their parties. Perhaps, but it is surely the case that, even without those incentives, he would have done the same thing since he routinely does so...

This highly febrile moment was the worst imaginable time for the news that a grotesque attempted murder had been allegedly committed by a Sudanese refugee in Belfast. The case was very different in its details, but the familiar patterns of social media outrage quickly led to far more extreme violence in Belfast than had occurred in Southampton. In Belfast, gangs of masked men sought out individuals and families who were refugees, or simply ‘foreign’, to attack them and burn their homes, along with wider violence against the police and other targets. Evidence is now emerging that a ‘target list’ of immigrants’ addresses had been drawn up months ago, well before this week’s stabbing, suggesting that this was merely a pretext.

These were not, as the Telegraph described them, “protests”. A more accurate term was that used by the Times: it was a “pogrom”. That term, more often associated with anti-Semitic violence, has a particular, and controversial, historical association in Northern Ireland, dating back to the 1920s and in that and other ways the meaning of this week’s violence in Northern Ireland is somewhat different to that in mainland Britain...

As for Farage, if he had indeed felt any sense of shame the previous week there was no sign of it in his response to the Belfast violence as he gloatingly ‘warned’ that “things will continue to kick off” and will continue to do so “over the course of the summer”, whilst claiming that “the vast majority” involved in the disorder are not “bad actors” but (he implied but did not say) just ordinary decent people with legitimate concerns. He could hardly conceal his glee, any more than could those recycling the now-popular predictions of imminent civil war.

It's in that kind of social media environment - a Far Right mob one match away from starting an inferno - similar to the conditions here in the United States over the past 20-30 years, where Culture War upstarts, thence Tea Party protestors, thence MAGA insurrectionists skew the public discourse towards racism, anti-immigration outrage, and threats (and acts) of violence towards those liberals they deem "enemies". As much as we've seen the likes of Obama and Biden try to placate the other side of the aisle with bipartisan appeals, none of it ever worked. And it's in that kind of environment Starmer offered similar appeals and failed.

Starmer has been quite robust, ever since the asylum hostel riots shortly after he first came to power, in condemning far-right violence. Yet he and his government have done nothing to counter the general proposition that immigration and asylum seekers are a ‘problem’ requiring draconian restrictions. Indeed, as regards Brexit, specifically, there can be no doubt that the main reason for the ‘red lines’ is to forestall the return of freedom of movement of people. The most charitable reading of Labour’s approach to immigration is that it is a tactic to de-fang the far right: if so, it is abundantly clear that it has failed.

Not mentioned in Grey's article was the speech Starmer offered back in 2025 that could highlight the moment Starmer lost his own party base: the "Island of Strangers" anti-immigrant screed that immediately backfired on him (via Rajeev Syal at the Guardian):

The rhetoric was likened by some critics to the language of Enoch Powell, and the prime minister was accused of pandering to the populist right by insisting he intended to “take back control of our borders” and end a “squalid chapter” of rising inward migration.

Some politicians claimed that his words had echoed Powell’s notorious “rivers of blood” speech, which imagined a future multicultural Britain where the white population “found themselves made strangers in their own country”.

When asked to respond to accusations he had adopted Powell’s rhetoric, Starmer told the Guardian: “Migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and I would never denigrate that.”

But in words that could further enrage his critics, Starmer insisted that new migrants must “learn the language and integrate” once in the UK. He said: “Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.”

Several Labour MPs questioned whether Starmer’s policies were fuelling racism. Sarah Owen, the Labour chair of the women and equalities committee, who is of Malaysian-Chinese heritage, said: “Chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path.

“The best way to avoid becoming an ‘island of strangers’ is investing in communities to thrive – not pitting people against each other.”

Rose Judson over at Balloon Juice - the resident UK resident for that site - shared a few snippets of Starmer's failure including a Bluesky skeet that showed how that "island of strangers" speech angered the Labour base and did nothing to appeal to the racist Right:

Then came a new flashpoint: the "islands of strangers" speech. Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters reacted strongly against it, with Starmer losing net positive favourability among 2024 Labour voters for the first time, while receiving absolutely no credit from voters on the right.

[image or embed]

— Dylan Difford (@dylandifford.bsky.social) June 21, 2026 at 1:20 PM

Just in case the skeet disappears or the embed fails...

Pandering Never Works, case study no. 9876543210.

Judson has to live with this mess, and she's not thrilled about how it's staging to be the same old same old:

And there isn’t a woman or non-white person in the frame anywhere, which tells you a lot about the state of this party. It’s a depressing brew made from the dregs of Blairism, which was the dregs of Thatcherism, and all of it poisoned by Brexit.

Will an ambitious metropolitan mayor bring change at Number 10? For reasons, I have my doubts, especially since Burnham’s recent public statements include a bit of tacking to the center. We’ll see what happens in the coming months. Fingers crossed it won’t be same shit, different hair.

The best that the people of the United Kingdom can hope for is that the incoming PM - Burnham until further notice (or scandal) - makes a strong plan to undo Brexit and restart their struggling economy (which is now performing worse than Mississippi, one of the poorest states we've got), that he confronts the likes of Farage and hold him accountable for his incitements to race riots, and that he gets on the BBC's case and brings Doctor Who back out of hiatus, preferably with Emilia Jones as the new Doctor.

...I'm not joking.

Punch What Is On the Menu

Violence is not in good taste, but sometimes punch is what's on the menu.
-- Alyssa Cole

Most of today was news about the British government moving forward in their criminal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein's abuse and trafficking of underage girls at a global level... by arresting someone who was at the top of the British government (via Lucy Campbell, Nadeem Badshah, Tom Ambrose, and Taz Ali at The Guardian):

Here’s a brief recap of a shocking and dramatic day that could have profound ramifications for the royal family.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office by police investigating the former prince’s dealings with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Photographs showed unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am (GMT). They searched the Norfolk property as well as his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

Police had been assessing allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy. The allegations stem from documents released by the US justice department relating to Epstein and his links to the rich and powerful. Emails released appeared to show Mountbatten-Windsor sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. Another email appeared to send Epstein a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing or accusations against him, but has not directly responded to these latest allegations...

There is a painful irony in that Andrew - no longer a prince in the royal family - is facing criminal charges for the financial shenanigans that Epstein and that circle of elites committed over the decades, instead of the sexual abuse charges that deserve greater focus (and hopefully punishment).

But these charges against ex-Prince Randy Andy (yes, that was his nickname) highlight one of the dirty truths regarding everything crooked in Jeffrey Epstein's world. There is a terrifying connection between the powerful elites - those with wealth, those with political office, those with social connections, those with the authority to hide the crimes of others - when it comes to abusing their elite status towards everyone else... especially young women without any power or protection of their own.

Each release of Epstein files - recently the thousands of emails detailing Epstein's connections to other men who shared the same misogyny and racism - exposes how everything wrong with our society and culture tie into each other. The greed driving our economic inequality, the fear driving the hatred towards immigrants and "the Other", the rage driving the attacks both physical and emotional towards women: All of it tied into this twisted patriarchal sociopathy that demands obedience to whichever wannabe Alpha Male flexes his ego the most.

We need a full release of the Epstein Files: not the names of the victims but the names of the perpetrators, so that we can drive those sons of bitches out of power before they cause more harm (because they are).

Four for the Fourth 2024: And Farmer George Thought HE Had it Bad on His 4th of July...

This will be a 4th Of July long remembered in Great Britain.

The United Kingdom held their parliamentary elections today, and it turned into a "bloodbath" for the ruling Conservative Party projected to suffer their worst defeat in over two centuries (via Brian Wheeler at BBC News):

Labour is set to win a general election landslide with a majority of 170, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky.

If the forecast is accurate, Sir Keir Starmer will become prime minister with 410 Labour MPs – just short of Tony Blair's 1997 total.

The Conservatives are predicted to slump to 131 MPs, their lowest number ever...

The exit poll, overseen by Sir John Curtice and a team of statisticians, is based on data from voters at about 130 polling stations in England, Scotland and Wales. The poll does not cover Northern Ireland.

At the past five general elections, the exit poll has been accurate to within a range of 1.5 and 7.5 seats...

If the exit poll is correct it will be a remarkable turnaround for the Labour Party, which had its worst post-war election result in 2019, when the Conservatives under Boris Johnson won an 80-seat majority.

The Conservatives may avoid the wipe-out predicted by some opinion polls but they are still set for the worst result in the party's history, losing 241 MPs - a devastating blow after 14 years in government...

I'm not sure how the Tories are going to convince themselves they know what they're doing after a massive shift in voter support like this. They had picked up a major victory in 2019 gaining an 80-seat majority, and by the next election are losing 170 seats. A comparable situation would be like the House Republicans getting their 6-seat majority in 2022 only to have the Democrats flip it to a 60 seat majority in 2024 (one hopes).

I still have not heard any results for the election most watched this night: the turnout between Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Count Binface (okay, there's a few other party candidates as well). Sunak's polling numbers were low enough that he's facing a historic first: First Prime Minister to lose his seat in an election. Most of those predecessors tended to be in safe districts, but in this election cycle almost none of the Conservative seats were safe. (Update: Sunak was able to win his seat, alas. Dammit, Richmond and Northallerton! A Raving Looney candidate was right there! You had one job!)

That's how bad the Tories had performed over the past five years to lose so much support.

It'll take some time for the actual ballots to get counted, but even if the projections are off by their statistical norms, Labour has still won a decisive turnout.

Next will be a question of how Labour is going to fix all the damage - the austerity economics getting out of the Great Recession, the various scandals over their tenure, and of course Brexit - this inept, corrupt Tory leadership has done since 2010.

Happy 4th of July, Brits!

Hope you saved some of the fireworks from Bonfire Night.

Here's George III taking it like a champ in Hamilton:

This Earth, This Realm, This 2024 British Election to Tell Tories to Sod Off, Eh

It's been a busy weekend, but here's news about the British Prime Minister calling for a snap election - months ahead of when he was required to hold one - that may well spell the end of almost two decades of Conservative Tory rule (via Helen Lewis at The Atlantic (paywalled)):

One of the perks of being Britain’s prime minister is getting to choose the date when voters deliver their verdict on your government. Most push their advantage by selecting a time when their party is ahead in the polls, the economic mood is buoyant, and their supporters are optimistic about success.

None of those things is true now for Sunak and his Conservative Party, who will face voters on July 4. Since the last election, in December 2019, the Tories have dispensed with Boris Johnson for partying through COVID and Liz Truss for somehow tanking the economy in a mere 49 days in office. Sunak, who has been prime minister only since October 2022, was required to call an election by December, but no one quite understands why he has done it now...

The recent local and mayoral elections were bloody for the Tories. They lost nearly 500 local councilors, the mayoral elections in London and Birmingham, and a special election in the northern-English constituency of Blackpool South. “For the Conservative government the message is crystal clear,” Rob Ford, a political-science professor at Manchester University, wrote on Substack after the results came out. “Voters want them out, everywhere, by any means necessary. That mood is as strong as ever and time is running out to change it.” Added to this, Sunak’s personal ratings are woeful: Polls show that a majority of Britons find him incompetent, unlikable, or indecisive...

So why call an election now? Presumably because Sunak thinks, in an inversion of the song that soundtracked Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997, things can only get worse. And sure enough, when Sunak made his announcement outside Downing Street, a protester outside the gates started to play “Things Can Only Get Better” at ear-splitting volume, drowning out the prime minister’s recitation of his record in office, and of the threats currently facing Britain. As it turned out, things could also only get wetter, as spring rain soaked the normally dapper Sunak. He was just a man, standing in front of an electorate, asking them not to humiliate him at the ballot box...

Something that Lewis barely mentions in her article - the word itself only shows up three times - is Brexit. The biggest policy gambit since Margaret Thatcher's undoing of the social safety net, the one policy that Conservatives - pushed by Boris Johnson, Brexit's biggest advocate - campaigned hard for back in 2019, the one thing affecting nearly every economic decision made by Parliament since 2016... and you'd be hard pressed to find ANY Tory or major UK media outlet bringing it up as an issue for the voters. Not even Labour - the major opposition party poised to retake Parliament this cycle - wants to discuss Brexit's impact on the United Kingdom.

Which is weird considering how Brexit's been a negative effect on Britain ever since Johnson pushed a hard Brexit departure from the European Union. Even the economists like Bloomberg's Matthew A Winkler can't put a positive spin on it:

Far from being the bloated, inefficient bureaucracy derided by Euroskeptics -- led by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was the fabulist journalist for the London Telegraph -- who colored the prevailing Brexit media narrative, the EU economy is growing 2.3 percentage points faster than the UK’s on an annual basis, with GDP advancing 24% since 2016, compared with the 6% for the UK. During the 10 years before the Brexit referendum, EU GDP lagged behind the UK annually by 12 basis points, since 2000 by 9 basis points and the two decades preceding Brexit, by 149 basis points, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The dichotomy is similar for GDP per individual among the 20 countries sharing the euro. The bloc’s per capita GDP increased 19%, or 2.19 percentage points more than the UK on annual basis since 2016, an overwhelming reversal of the decade prior to Brexit. During the 10 years preceding Brexit, annualized euro zone growth was barely eight basis points better than the UK, and between 2000 and 2016 the euro zone trailed the UK by six basis points.

Contrary to the overwhelming perception, Britain had everything to gain from its EU inclusion and little to lose as the bloc expanded with the fall of the Soviet Union's Berlin Wall and rapid integration of Eastern European countries. Between 2011 and 2015, the EU's jobless rate expanded from 1.3 percentage points higher than the UK to 4.6 percentage points above. Only after the Brexit vote did the situation reverse, with the EU's additional joblessness rate narrowing to 2.9 percentage points as its citizens secured employment at a faster rate than their UK counterparts...

Among other things that happened - even when you take the COVID pandemic of 2020-22 out of the equations - have been the increased red tape within the UK itself trying to deal with trade with multiple different partners instead of a unified EU bloc. Supply chains got disrupted and show no signs of getting better.

Conservatives can't resolve these matters because they dare not admit - even to themselves - that they bolloxed their prized policy stance this poorly. Every response they could offer from their agenda - tax cuts and deregulation - could well trigger apocalyptic reactions from their markets (like it did when Liz Truss tried to pitch a massive tax cut plan that nuked her Prime Minister job in record time). Labour doesn't want to talk much about it - even though they're likely to repair some of the damage to fit their own policy ideas regarding trade and finance - because they have their own concerns about the EU that hampered their own campaign stances back in 2019.

If the Tories have any advantage, it's that their district-oriented, first-past-the-post election system could split the anti-Conservative anger among the voters between Labour and the third party Liberal Democrats. Much like what happened in 2019, where the Lib Dems - the only major party to openly oppose Brexit - and Labour competed to their detriment letting Conservatives to eke past both in key districts. While this time around, there's more calls for "strategic voting" between Labour and Libs to ensure that doesn't happen again, there's no guarantee the voters will pay attention.

Tories have basically been in control of the UK since 2010, over 14 years of economic austerity and Brexit ineptitude that has broken most national services and created this social and economic malaise. Toss into that scandal after scandal that have exposed the Conservatives as liars/hypocrites/failures, and there's little that the party can offer as any kind of successful leadership. 

There's far too many British voters now angry at them, since there's no one else to blame now.

Time for them to depart, they have sat too long for any good they have never done for the nation or the world. In the name of Doctor Who, go.

P.S. As a side note, it's been pointed out how Sunak is calling for this election to fall on July 4th, which is a rather embarrassing day in British history all things considered; and a pretty funny act of irony for us Americans who'll be celebrating our Independence Day then. Considering how I celebrate that day - blogging like mad to make it Four for the Fourth - I am likely to comment on the election results, so I got that to look forward to. ;-) 

Buh-Bye, Brexit Boris

A grand day for exposing conservative douchebaggery across the globe. Boris Johnson has just straight-up resigned from Parliament (via Rowena Mason at The Guardian): 

Boris Johnson is standing down immediately as a Conservative MP after an investigation into the Partygate scandal found he misled parliament and recommended a lengthy suspension from the House of Commons.

The former prime minister angrily accused the investigation of trying to drive him out, and claimed there was a “witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result”.

In a bitter 1,000-word statement, he attacked Rishi Sunak’s government, blaming the current prime minister for rising taxes, not being Conservative enough and failing to make the most of Brexit.

Johnson hinted that he may try to make a return to politics, saying he was “very sad to be leaving parliament – at least for now”.

I personally can't see how Boris Badhair returns to politics. He's burned every bridge and goodwill he's ever had including within his own party. He's only quitting now because the suspension he was threatened with - 10 days of it - would have triggered an automatic by-election. He had to know he was going to lose in an election where it was him alone on the platform, and forced to explain how badly he performed as Prime Minister and as a human being.

Blaming Sunak for Brexit's failure is of course a charming way for Boris to deflect how his own screw-ups and obsessions with pushing a harsh No-Deal break from the EU is why Brexit never worked out the way he lied promised it would.

Can't wait to see how Chris Grey blogs about this over the weekend.

But man. trump getting hit with serious federal charges, and now Boris Johnson fleeing in shame from his own party. I wanna get a hat trick here people, let's hit the trifecta. C'MON GOD, HIT PUTIN WITH A LIGHTNING BOLT TONIGHT.

Truss is Toast, But Where Does That Leave the UK?

It's a bit worse than that. After my check-in with British politics showing Prime Minister Liz Truss - barely a month into her tenure - facing collapse of her government already, Truss was measured up to a head of lettuce - to see if a fresh head of lettuce could outlast her - and failed, miserably (via Helen Lewis at the Atlantic):

...Six days ago, Liz Truss’s leadership was in such trouble that a British tabloid began a livestream to test a simple proposition: Could the shelf life of a supermarket vegetable outlast her time as prime minister?

Today, the lettuce looked a little bruised, but it could still be incorporated into a healthy salad. Sadly, Liz Truss serves no such useful purpose. At 1:30 p.m. London time, she announced that she was leaving office. Her replacement will be elected next week.

The saga of Liz and the lettuce tells us many things about British political culture, one of which is its taste for lousy jokes. How was the Brexiteer Liz Truss brought down? A Romaine plot. Why did she make so many mistakes? Just cos. Was her decision to give a tax cut to the rich her fatal error? No, it was just the tip of the iceberg. Be thankful there aren’t more varieties of lettuce...

What went wrong? As I wrote earlier this week, everything. Her economic plans made the markets shudder. Her staffing decisions alienated her colleagues. Her poll numbers suggested that the Conservatives were heading for an electoral wipeout. Britain’s economic situation is extremely precarious: Inflation is higher than 10 percent, food banks are warning about elevated demand, and there is a small possibility of electricity blackouts over the winter. Yet despite the widespread fear these things engender, in the end, so much went wrong for Truss that people kept telling me they felt sorry for her. She was absolutely hopeless...

It's been noted that in reference to the short career of Scaramucci (11 days), Liz Truss lasted about 4 Scaramuccis. Hardly the best thing for her resume. Truss' tenure was so short the political biographies on her getting rushed out to the bookstores for Christmas are already obsolete.

That all said, the question now is "Who is foolish enough to replace her as Prime Minister?"

I mentioned this in the last article: This whole fiasco "...Exposes the Conservatives with the painful reality that they have ousted two Prime Ministers within within 6 months of each other, and creating a leadership crisis among factions who are fighting amongst themselves for high office. A situation that will consume the next unlucky soul who signs up as PM because their party's Brexit platform will condemn that fool to more failure."

In a horrifying development, Boris Johnson is eyeing a return to the job that his own party drove him from three months ago. He still has a fanbase within the Tory ranks, even though enough of the Conservatives were sick of Boris' constant scandalous behavior and constant lying. It's as though Boris is thinking "Well, they've seen the worst of what my replacement Liz has done, surely they will forgive me and bring me back to power."

That is, of course, utter madness (and a terrifying sign of Boris' narcissism). One of the reasons the Conservatives are down in the polls is the loss of trust that happened on Johnson's watch. There are no signs that the British voters are willing to forgive Boris for his failures getting his Brexit plans to work, and especially not about to forgive him for his mishandling of the COVID pandemic and the self-serving scandals that doomed him.

When Boris faced his No Confidence vote in June 2022, it was followed by a series of party-breaking resignations that threatened to gut his Cabinet and wreck whatever government he could form, which drove him to resign (although he took all summer to do so). There are no signs that Boris can form a new government today. The Tories themselves are so divided by factions that if Boris forces himself back into the big chair that one of those factions will split off and wreck the weakening Conservative majority, forcing a special election now instead of 2024.

Even if it isn't Boris retaking 10 Downing Street, whomever does get the job faces the same problem of either major faction - either the Ultra Brexits who want their utopia, or the moderates looking to rebuild a trade deal with the European Union that could regain some economic stability (what a Soft Brexit could have been) - splitting off out of sheer spite. Whatever happens, this current situation is untenable, but the Conservatives are so bound to their Brexit fantasies that they cannot stop themselves.

This clown car is still falling off the cliff, everybody. It's a question of how sharp the jagged rocks are below.

Liz Truss Is In Trouble

Update: Ooof, what? I was at work today, what's all this about Batocchio adding this article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up this morning? Dammit, I didn't vacuum the rug or anything! (hurries to clean up the place) Um, glance around, I got other stuff to read. Also, in a couple of weeks I will find out if any of my blog articles up for the FWA's Royal Palm Awards will win anything, so keep an eye out for more news! Thank ye, Batocchio.

When last we checked in with the United Kingdom, the Brits were coping with the loss of their beloved Queen Elizabeth II while their Parliamentary government had chosen a replacement Prime Minister to take over from scandal-plagued Boris Badhair.

Liz Truss had just recently replaced Boris Johnson in early September, going up to Scotland to Elizabeth's pastoral retreat at Balmoral to present her credentials and perform the ritual - bowing, holding the hand, answering three questions to cross the Gorge of Eternal Peril, that sort of thing - each new PM does with the Crown. Only that within 24 hours of doing so, Elizabeth II fell ill and never recovered, which didn't exactly bode well for Truss.

It was as though Liz II met Liz T, and Liz II decided "Fuck all, this ditz isn't worth it, I'll let Charles handle this nightmare" and got out while the getting was good.

Because Liz Truss is turning out to be even WORSE as Prime Minister than Johnson was. Within a month of being in office, Truss has blundered from one bad mistake to the next, exposing her Conservative leadership to humiliation, creating economic catastrophes that can't be easily undone, and forcing her Tory allies to plot her early removal.

Christ. Even William Henry Harrison lasted longer than this (okay, I exaggerate, but Truss is honestly facing the shortest tenure as Prime Minister in British history).

Let's go to the dirty details with Tom McTague at the Atlantic (paywall):

Today, we had the absurd spectacle of a prime minister, barely a month into the job, abandoning the central tax-cutting purpose of her premiership and sacking her closest political ally, who had implemented this vision. This all in aid of a vain and surely doomed attempt to cling to power, after the markets concluded that her policies were insane. Never before has Britain found itself in such a humiliatingly risible position. It is the stuff of nightmares: the national equivalent of getting caught short onstage in front of your entire school because you chose not to go to the bathroom when you had the chance...

The political ally McTague speaks of was Kwasi Kwarteng, chosen to be her Finance Minister in her Cabinet, who was obsessive about the supply-side/trickle-down fantasies of massive tax cuts as stimulus in a British economy facing inflation and several other woes. When Kwarteng presented his tax-cut plan with Truss' approval, everything went to hell (back to McTague):

What Britain needed, Truss argued, was a tax-cutting bonanza to set it free. Her rival for the leadership was Johnson’s chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who argued for fiscal responsibility and warned that such a reckless policy would lead to a run on the pound and a calamitous series of mortgage-rate rises. Given this choice, the electorate for the Tory leadership—the roughly 170,000 members of the Conservative Party—preferred the magical money tree.

So, on September 23—two and a half weeks after taking over as prime minister—Truss and her new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced an extraordinary array of tax cuts without any indication of how they would be paid for. They called this their “plan for growth.”

And then there was a run on the pound and a calamitous series of mortgage-rate rises...

If you've followed my blog, every so often I will come across the Republican Party's obsessions with tax cuts being a cure-all for all ills, and I will scream into the void that TAX CUTS DON'T WORK. Watching the British counterparts of the Tories trying to pull the same trickle-down fantasy and getting smacked by the real world is satisfying in a schadenfreude kind of way. Back to McTague:

The reaction to Truss’s plan was immediate and savage. The markets responded with horror at the sudden gaping hole in Britain’s budget. The pound collapsed against the dollar, almost reaching an unprecedented parity, and the cost of government borrowing rocketed. Huge interest-rate increases by the Bank of England began to be priced in as the only way to protect the currency, which, of course, meant stepping on the brakes after Truss had put her foot on the accelerator.

This, in turn, led ordinary banks to start hiking their mortgage rates in expectation of what was coming, just as Sunak had warned, which then sent the property-owning middle classes into a tailspin as they rushed to lock in new rates before the numbers spiked even further. Suddenly, the tax-cutting budget to get Britain growing again had turned into a massive hit on Middle England. Even the International Monetary Fund departed from protocol to issue a sharp rebuke to Truss’s government...

Her intraparty rival warned her, the UK banks warned her, and Truss STILL pushed ahead on an unjustified tax cut plan all because - Gods help the Conservative Party - they have no other plans that fit their world-view. Tax cuts are all they believe in much like the American Republicans, because they dare not think about raising taxes on their billionaire corporate allies to fix their government's budget woes. Again to to McTague:

In a single act of stupidity, Truss managed to blow up Johnson’s markedly redistributive election-winning platform—and therefore his coalition, which included disaffected Labour voters from the poorer north of England. Instead of spending more on public services, Truss detonated an economic bomb under the middle classes—first, by lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses and cutting taxes for the rich, and then, faced with market turmoil, by scrambling around for new spending cuts. It would be hard to design a more catastrophic act of political self-immolation...

Britain has been broke before. It was in this position after the war when it needed U.S. assistance, and then again in the late ’70s when it was bailed out by the IMF. It was battered by the markets in 1992 when John Major’s economic strategy collapsed.

What’s happening now is entirely new: the very real prospect that the markets will force a change of prime minister before an election. They have already forced a change in policy. Truss’s problems are so acute that Tory MPs are discussing removing her as a serious option, perhaps their only one. If Truss is removed any time soon, hers would be the shortest premiership in British history, beating George Canning’s 119-day tenure in 1827. And he died in office...

(That's where I got the comparison to Harrison. My bad)

While McTague is raking Truss over the coals for her blunders, the thing he avoids discussing is how Truss and her Tory allies were hampered by their blinkered devotion to the primary source of all of Britain's current economic woes: Brexit. That disaster - haunting that nation since 2016 - is a very big reason why Truss - and her predecessor Johnson, and his predecessor Teresa May - can't make any other major economic reform needed to rebuild the UK economy.

For that, I go to Chris Grey at his invaluable Brexit & Beyond blog where he points out the flaws in Truss' agenda and how Brexit is going to doom her and any other replacement Prime Minister until the next general election. From his September 30th article:

The political ambitions of the libertarian wing of the Brexit Ultras have always been ambivalent. On the one hand, they have largely preferred to complain of betrayal from the sidelines rather than take any responsibility or, if accepting ministerial office, to quickly resign rather than engage with the pragmatic realities of Brexit. On the other hand, they have hankered to be in charge not just so as to create ‘true Brexit’, but the ‘real Conservatism’ of which Brexit was a part and to which it was a gateway.

With the advent of Truss’s premiership, they have eschewed the sidelines in favour of governing and, with a rapidity that even their sternest critics would have thought it cruel to predict, have been exposed as utterly incompetent, both politically and economically, and in the most basic of ways. It is deeply ironic that this has happened at the hand of ‘the markets’ which they so slavishly fetishize...

The occasion, of course, was last Friday’s tax-cutting ‘mini-budget’. “At last! A true Tory Budget”, the Daily Mail drooled, whilst Nigel Farage simpered about “the best Conservative Budget since 1986”. Yet, whether despite or because of this fidelity to Conservatism, and as anticipated in my previous post, there was an immediate crisis in the currency and bond markets, with the value of the pound falling to its lowest ever level on Monday, and the cost of government borrowing in the form of gilts or bonds rising very sharply. Amongst numerous knock-on effects, pension funds, which invest heavily in such bonds, came within hours of mass insolvency on Wednesday afternoon, threatening a major breakdown of the financial system and requiring major emergency temporary action from the Bank of England. This, in combination, with a clear signal from the Bank that interest rates will rise in due course, which eased pressure on the pound, has effected a degree of stabilization, but markets remain jittery and it’s by no means clear that this crisis has run its course, especially as regards gilts.

These weren’t routine or trivial market movements, but an overwhelming and brutal vote of no confidence in the government’s plans. Specifically, they were a vote of no confidence in the decision to cut taxes, or not implement previously planned tax rises, and to fund this through borrowing. Again as anticipated in my last post, the government’s refusal to allow its plans to be scrutinised independently by the Office for Budget Responsibility added to market alarm. So, too, did Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s casual reaction over the weekend, even suggesting further tax cuts to come. The rout continued on Monday when, as Paul Donovan, Chief Economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, put it, “investors seem to regard the UK Conservative Party as a doomsday cult”...

Re-read the part about Kwarteng's suggestion of doubling down on an economic plan that already caused a meltdown. The wingnut Conservatives can't stop themselves. If tax cuts create a massive economic crisis, well then by God we'll insist on even more tax cuts, because sooner or later the Trickle Down Fairy will grant us our boons. /headdesk Truss firing Kwarteng from his job was the only way to curtail that particular madness. And yet, the cause of every other act of insanity happening in England remains because Truss and her party are still wrapped up in Brexit dogma, as Grey continues to note:

So, given that the Brexiters themselves regard the mini-budget as integral to Brexit, it’s reasonable to say, as Robert Shrimsley of the Financial Times did (£), that “Brexit ideology lies behind the UK’s market rout”. It’s abundantly clear to even the feeblest intelligence that those Brexiters now include Truss, for all the fury  of Dominic Cummings’s denials (directed at me!) on the inane grounds that she supported Remain in 2016. As I pointed out during the campaign, she is now a ‘born again Ultra’, perhaps the more fanatical for being so, and was extravagantly endorsed by the leading Ultras, making the fact that she was once a Remainer the most tedious and least relevant thing to say about her.

As so often before, Brexiter responses to the crisis they created have been confused and contradictory. Some in the government prissily said they could not comment on market events, as if some new Trappist ordinance of political propriety has been invented. Others downplayed what has happened, suggesting that the market reaction is either trivial or transient, or even that it has little or nothing to do with the budget but is simply a result of a strengthening dollar (which doesn’t explain why the pound fell against all major currencies, or what happened in the bond market). Outrageously, some, like Crispin Odey, hedge fund manager, Tory and Vote Leave donor, and sometime employer of Kwarteng, blamed “Remainers”. Peak insanity was reached by Daniel Hannan, who blamed the crash not on the mini-budget, but market fears of a Labour government!

Of course much like Conservatism itself, Brexit cannot fail it can only be betrayed. Even with the Bank of England and IMF and various other economic entities telling the Tories that it's their Brexit policies creating these economic meltdowns, the Tories cannot accept that fault and must blame others - the Remainers, Labour, hell even the Teletubbies will get accused next - rather than admit where the Leave movement went wrong. Grey calls them out on that:

That refusal has as its counterpart the distinctively Brexity idea, now taken over wholesale by this Brexit government, that they are beleaguered revolutionaries of true Conservativism fighting the (presumably false) conservatism of ‘the Establishment’. The notion of Brexit as an anti-Establishment insurgency has been a ludicrous one ever since the 2016 referendum was won, and Brexit became adopted as the central policy and national strategy. It is even more so now that the Brexit Ultras are unequivocally in charge of government, though of course it is a standard populist trope, familiar from the Trump presidency.

What we have seen this week is that the Brexiters have added ‘the markets’ to the increasingly long and diverse list – encompassing the ‘Woke’ Blob, the civil service in general and the Treasury in particular, the BoE, Remainers, Rejoiners, the National Trust, the BBC – of enemy forces they must confront in the name of revolutionary purity...

So my own view is that, in their arrogance and delusion, this Brexit government, and its cheerleaders, really do believe it has found a new ‘unconventional’ economic model and did not expect the market reaction, and that although a full November budget was certainly planned, including the announcement of the deregulatory ‘supply side reforms’ that will supposedly deliver the growth to pay for tax cuts, it was not going to include significant spending cuts which, instead, were anticipated for after Truss had won the election on the back of what they expected to be a growing economy. Then, with the legitimacy of a fresh mandate and a compliant parliamentary majority, she would declare it was time to shrink public spending but without coupling that with the tax cuts that would already be in place.

If my interpretation is right, the government’s plan is now in tatters, and the expectation is that the November budget will feature huge spending cuts (£) (and perhaps reversing the tax cuts, as some Tory MPs want, which can’t be ruled out though it seems unlikely at the moment)...

For this government was already politically weak, and as a result of this crisis is now much weaker. Although the libertarian cabal has taken control of the government, both it and Truss have many opponents amongst MPs and, as I remarked in a post during the leadership campaign, the current Tory Party is so riven by factions as to be unleadable, with rebellions an ever-present possibility. This week’s crisis has laid that bare, with, almost astonishingly given how new her premiership is, reports of letters of no confidence in Truss being submitted by some MPs and threats of backbench revolts...

There is already talk of a No Confidence vote happening by Monday. They're already pressing the 1922 Committee that oversees such matters to force her out as soon as possible. But this maneuver exposes the Conservatives with the painful reality that they have ousted two Prime Ministers within within 6 months of each other, and creating a leadership crisis among factions who are fighting amongst themselves for high office. A situation that will consume the next unlucky soul who signs up as PM because their party's Brexit platform will condemn that fool to more failure.

Seriously, who will be next to replace Truss? It's looking like it will be Sunak, who warned of the collapse of the pound and housing costs skyrocketing, but he didn't win over the party earlier this year, and he's viewed as being weak on Brexit meaning the extremist factions will rebel against him anyway.

The entire Conservative Party in the UK is stuck in a downward spiral of self-inflicted defeats, all because they can't change course on their Brexit policies and dare not open themselves to the possibility that the Remainers were right all along. But in the meantime, they'll fight against any calls for a emergency election in order to stay in power until 2024 when the general election happens anyway: Two more years of nightmarish intraparty fighting while the British Isles falls apart. 

The only way that election happens is if the Tories finally break apart into their own party factions: If the Tories go to a Minority government, they may not have enough votes to stop Labour forcing new elections.

It then becomes an issue of how angry the British voters will be, and if they abandon Conservatives to switch to Labour - or even Liberal Dems - in a final rebuke to Brexit madness that has broken their nation the last six years.

That's the only hope the British have left.

The Queen We Saw

Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl/
But she doesn't have a lot to say/
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl/
But she changes from day to day

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot/
But I gotta get a belly full of wine/
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah/
Someday I'm gonna make her mine...

-- "Her Majesty," The Beatles

What, you were expecting "The Queen Is Dead" by the Smiths???

I have to be seen to be believed.
-- Her Majesty, herself

Her Majesty Elizabeth, Second of Her Name, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and her other realms and territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Auxiliary Mechanic in the Home Front during World War II, Whovian Fan Number One, passed from this earthly realm today and sent much of the world into reflection about one of the most extravagant and eventful lives ever lived.

Nearly every publication out there will have tributes aplenty, but I'm finding this one by Tom McTague from The Atlantic to be spot on:

...She was the product of ancestral inheritance but was more popular than any of her prime ministers and remained head of state in countries around the world because of public support. She was in a sense a democratic Queen, a progressive conservative, an aristocratic multiculturalist.

Queen Elizabeth was a constitutional monarch, not a political leader with real powers, and one who was required to serve an ever-changing set of realms, peoples, institutions, and ideas that were no longer as obviously compatible as they had been when she ascended to the throne. The Queen’s great achievement was to honor the commitment she made to an imperial nation and its empire as a princess even as it became a multiethnic state and a Commonwealth...

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926, as a princess to not simply a king but an emperor. She became Queen to a multitude of realms. A child of empire, European supremacy, and the old order—even the old faith, Anglican Christianity—she came to see it as her solemn duty to represent all the peoples and religions of the Commonwealth.

This duty created friction during her reign, but it made her different from any other European monarch and, paradoxically, kept her modern. A great irony of Queen Elizabeth II is that the most penetrating criticism of her reign came not from the republican left but from the nationalist right, parts of which saw past her image of continuity and tradition to the deep change that her rule actually represented...

In retrospect, it was absurd to think that the Queen could be both British and global, sharing herself equally among her various realms. How can one person be Queen of the United Kingdom one moment and Queen of Australia the next, as well as head of a Commonwealth? In time, the practical reality revealed itself—the Queen was primarily Queen of the United Kingdom.

From 1952 to her death, she would meet 13 of the 14 U.S. presidents elected in that time (Lyndon B. Johnson being the exception). She did so as Britain’s head of state—in effect, Queen of the Old Country hiding in imperial clothes, representing a state that, in U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s infamous put-down, had lost an empire but not yet found a role...

Yet successive British governments knew which direction they wanted to go in. In Africa, for example, Britain, unlike France, encouraged its former colonies not only to become independent, but to become republics. The loss of the empire was seen as a price worth paying for greater influence, and the Queen supported recognition of African nationalism. In 1960, when British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan remarked in a speech from South Africa that the “wind of change is blowing through this continent,” signaling the inevitability of decolonization, Elizabeth “took the unusual step of indicating her personal approval of Macmillan’s words,” Murphy records. Shortly after the speech, Macmillan received a telegram with a message from London that “the Queen was very interested and much impressed by the Prime Minister’s speech.” Four years later, the process of decolonization in East, West, and Central Africa was largely complete...

In some senses, Queen Elizabeth II leaves an ambiguous legacy. She stands above almost all of Britain’s British monarchs, but was one who oversaw a drastic shrinkage in the monarchy’s power, prestige, and influence. Such a legacy, however, does not do the Queen justice...

The Queen’s role in the Commonwealth might have been a device to hide the reality of the British empire’s decline, but she did not believe so. The irony is that in doing her duty to this imperial shadow in the same way she did her duty to Britain, she was better able to symbolize a modern, multicultural Britain and the world of the 21st century than logic might suggest was possible for an aristocratic European princess. Indeed, she is more popular in many African Commonwealth countries today than the former white dominions, which may soon choose to become republics and long ago stopped seeing themselves as British...

Looking back on her reign, it is clear that the age of Elizabeth really was golden: an age of extraordinary prosperity, European peace, human rights, and the collapse of Soviet tyranny. Queen Elizabeth II—the Queen—was one of the great symbols of that age, though not a creator of it, a servant rather than a master. But if her legacy is anything, it is that symbols and service matter, even as what they symbolize and serve bend and bow to meet the new reality.

If I could contribute to those thoughts: When we appraise the legacy of this queen Elizabeth the Second, we will note how she bookends the reign of the First Elizabeth, who presided over the rise of England as the foundation of a United Kingdom (as Wales, Ireland, and Scotland were slowly drawn by politics and wars to merge together) and the birth of the British Empire. Where the first Elizabeth saw its beginnings, the second witnessed - and took part in - the end of empire, replacing it with a more democratic nation-oriented Commonwealth.

It's not a clean legacy, obviously: the sins and bloodshed of colonization over the centuries do not wash off easy, and places like India and Pakistan have not forgiven some of the damage done. After I wrote this article, I've seen more angry reminders from the First Nations of Canada of how they suffered under the Residential Schools that brutally "re-educated" tribal children and caused a lot of abuse. 

But Elizabeth strived to respect the new nations spun off from colonial rule, and oversaw transitions that for the most part led to stable, functioning governments. It allowed her to retain devotion from post-colonial countries that have otherwise dismissed European political dynamics for their own. It doesn't excuse the lack of apology and reparations, I know, but it explains a little why the condemnations were intermingled with the condolences.

Elizabeth's own reputation across the world is more popular than her nation's. The glamour of royalty - where she herself was never glamourous a person compared to movie stars or the Kennedys or her daughter-in-law Diana - combined with her constant public persona of Duty Personified gave her a personality both regal and comforting. Nations that had nothing to do with the British Empire came to see her as THE Queen. Even in America, where we pride ourselves on tossing off the yoke of British tyranny - take that, Farmer George! - there is/was a lot of Anglophilia when it came to QE2. We Americans recognized her more than we recognized (or respected) the Prime Ministers who actually ran the UK.

Queen Elizabeth was the face - literally for 70 years! - of a royal institution that had outlasted nearly every other monarchy. It survived through an age of rampant republicanism, having endured constant calls by those who sought to dismantle the Crown as a political force and replace it either with an elected presidency or all of the power granted to the parliamentary system. Even the staunchest critics of royalty fell silent when the question came up whether to end Elizabeth's rule: She was too popular to toss to the curb and they knew it.

Which is why her passing can very well be the end of an age. Not just her Elizabethan (Second) Age of British glory, which stood firm against Nazis and Communists, and gave us the Beatles and Monty Python and Harry Potter and other cultural milestones that will stand the test of time like Shakespeare. With the death of Elizabeth II comes the reality that her singular gift of keeping the Commonwealth united will soon end.

Even before today, there were member nations - especially in the Caribbean, led by Jamaica - openly discussing a switch to a republican form of government with their own elected heads of state. Whether they may even stay in the Commonwealth with other nations is up for debate. The situation with Brexit - where the United Kingdom itself is struggling with trade woes and economic stability - has placed strains on how the Commonwealth operates, and may not survive for long unless serious reforms take place... and the current Tory Parliament isn't looking at serious reforms. The respect for the Queen was pretty much the one thing keeping it all going. And she's gone.

Elizabeth lived and died as mortal as any of us, but she took on a role - Wearing the Queenly Mask - that required her to sacrifice moments of personal happiness for a nation's - and the world's - greater good. And it was on that mask that the rest of us across the globe projected our hopes, our fears, our ambitions, our mockery, and more. Not everybody loved her, nor the idea of monarchy. Whatever we needed of her, we saw... but it was a question of whether we could believe what we saw. In the end, her devotion and duty convinced most of us she was real.