Great Britain’s Great Farce By Madeleine Kearns
Americans sometimes ask me whether British politics is really as shambolic as it looks. Beyond the 2017 general election, the indecisiveness over what to do post-Brexit vote, and the subsequent slew of Tory resignations, there are some other pressing queries.
Like, why hasn’t Jeremy Corbyn resigned already? Only last week, Labour MP Frank Field decided to leave his party of 40 years because he said its leadership is now “a force for anti-Semitism in British politics.” He’s right. To name but two examples: Corbyn has likened Israel to the Nazis and was caught on video making derogatory comments about Zionists at a Palestinian event in 2013.
Or, what is all this talk of a “People’s Vote”? That’s the increasing push, from what one political journalist rightly calls “a cabal of politicians, celebrities and millionaires,” for another vote on Brexit. Apparently, the 17.4 million people who voted to leave surely must have realized by now that they were wrong.
There have been many other — more benign — embarrassments. For instance, Britain’s new foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said at a meeting last month with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, “My wife is Japanese.” Before he remembered that actually, “My wife is Chinese, sorry.” (Don’t you just hate it when that happens?)
Or when the Prime Minister took to the dance floor on her recent Africa trip: perhaps hoping to reinvent her reputation for being robotic.
As you’d expect, much of the criticism of the Prime Minister’s moving-and-grooving has been very mean-spirited. Which reflects poorly on Brits, I think. But with all the vitriol and catastrophizing back home, I personally find this rare outburst of spontaneity to be extremely heartening. Furthermore, I suspect that I am not alone in my belief that Theresa May may actually be a comic genius. Her dance sketch in Africa is but one example. Consider some of her other routines:
Exhibit B: Fields of wheat.
Exhibit C: The Mexican wave.
Exhibit D: Zut alors! — it’s windy.
Exhibit E: Har-har — wrong car!
(I’d list more, but I’m already choking on my tea.)
Is British politics just a great big farce? Some ask. Well, sort of. But sometimes you just have to let down your hair and learn to join the dance . . .
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