The cathedral’s glittering on coronation day
Crowned heads and cardinals under military sway
I approach the altar slowly in a humble shroud
to receive the acclamation of the loyal crowd
Give me power over people in a palace
with a permanent guard
and the flags unfurled
Give devotion, dedication, celebration
not some cheap charade
and I’ll rule the world
All of these delusions of grandeur
because they said ‘We don’t understand you’
and I want revenge
In audience I receive the media’s pleas
They kiss my ring in interviews on bended knees
In victory I’m magnanimous and charming when
I speak exclusively at length to CNN
— Pet Shop Boys, Delusions Of Grandeur, 1997
Ring the bells, tell everyone. Revolution can be fun. Can’t it?
I’m about to explain why that well-worn phrase “be careful what you wish for” has never sounded more pertinent. But before that a quick explanation as to why a piece largely concerning 2026 is headed by a snapshot from what seems like another wistfully distant era — in this case a slap-up dinner at Spencer House in July 1992 to mark the 40th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession — and where all but one of the pictured are long gone.
I purposely chose the featured image not because I’m a nostalgist or a monarchist but because it’s the only photo I could find showing the UK’s longest-serving monarch with the first five Prime Ministers she ‘appointed’ since I’ve been on terra firma, ie (from left to right) Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990), Harold Wilson (1964-1970, 1974-1976), John Major (1990-1997), Edward Heath (1970-1974) and James Callaghan (1976-1979). Get me, because I had the good fortune to meet three of those former PMs after they left office too. One was formidable, one was friendly and one was sort of flirty. But enough about moi, because, the bygone snap also acts as an illustration that something has gone terribly wrong with Britain. It may even be terminal.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin…
The story of British politics today can be told by numbers. A quick calculation tells me that the combined tenures of the pictured quintet is 43 years. But what’s indicative of the basket case the country’s become is that no one expects any PM to last 43 months these days. So if I may paraphrase another pop choon, in the case of Starmer and Streeting, the now ex Prime Minister and Health Secretary who in the end, amounted to not quite a stalking horse but more a sashaying nag: “I want to run… oh, no, actually, I want to hide.” What is driving this narrative of instability and inconsistency? Is anyone up to the job or has governing itself become untenable? This is where I’d use the word lightweights if I didn’t think I was about to over-egg the pudding.
Yes, you probably heard the morbidly inevitable news from giddy London. In the governing Labour Party of June 2026, the aforementioned pair of porkers have announced they’ve bottled it and the next First Lord of the Treasury looks like being the first ever Liverpool-born Scouser to become UK PM, rather than the dodgy estuary queen with connections to the Krays.
In a matter of weeks, Little Britain will have its seventh Prime Minister in 10 years. Or six prime ministers in the last seven years, none of whom served a full parliament. Over the same itchy period, the tumultuous turnover has also spat out seven foreign secretaries, six chancellors of the exchequer and four cabinet secretaries.
A week is a long time in politics, Wilson famously quipped. Well, I give it a month. A quarter at best. I mean, how long will the next PM’s honeymoon period last? You know, before the populace get so utterly bored of them and they become just as unpopular as their predecessor, paving the way for numero otto to grab the poisoned chalice. It’s all just another bit of history repeating, eh Shirl. How is Monaco, by the way?
Talking of the continent, June 23 is the tenth anniversary of the ‘Brexit’ referendum which resulted in the ‘United’ Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU. You have to chuckle at the country’s wilful and perpetual self-sabotage or you’d sob into your Skol. Hardly anyone has any genuine hope or confidence, so every day feels like Groundhog Day on Eurovision day but without camp costumes and crap songs, ie the Brits’ perfunctory attempts at staying in the contest is to be seen to do something even though they already know it’s doomed to fail.
If nothing else the miale certainly gives Italian-style farce politics a run for its lira, reduced to a monstrous merry go-round where the unfortunate inhabitants are forever facing their Waterloo. Oh, that’s a good lead in.
Now in his own twilight years, Larry the cat (No.10‘s official chief mouser, I kid you not) must be suffering from whiplash from all the revolving door shenanigans. It’s no wonder the increasingly ludicrous gammon isle is in such a mess, really. Having been detached from it for so long perhaps it takes someone with a vantaged view to note that more often than not my eyes and ears are sullied by a naysayer’s room-loop agenda dominating everything like a depressed budgerigar working for Lucifer: loudly unhappy armchair politicians and sad social media pontiffs probably too busy to get a proper job let alone a decent education.
Though does the lack of either ever deter them from their interminable ramblings? It’s bad enough the ’socials’ have been almost single-handedly responsible for the narcissistic conceit that has led everyone, be they barristers or baristas, drifters or grifters, to believe they’re incredibly important commentators let alone understand the complexities of high office.
Filling a gap in their tawdry lives until Love Island returns, these wretched reactionaries would rather be posting online diatribes that helps fuel the incessant doom and gloom which results in replacing democratically elected representatives every couple of years or less, because the high drama of the speculation and eventual downfall is ‘entertainment’ far funnier than Mrs Brown’s Boys and, on a deeper level, speaks to their their own tragic gloom: “If my standard of living hasn’t improved in 20 years then neither should yours. I want revenge! And the latest smartphone, obvs.”
It is no coincidence that the two scarily dominant social media behemoths, Facebook and Twitter, really took off in 2007/2008. What also happened in 2008? Ah yes, the global financial crisis — GFC to you abbreviation-obsessed Aussies — of which we’ve never really recovered from. It doesn’t take Einstein to work out that one event capsized people’s expectations of a progressively improving standard of living while the other has given even the most placid bad speller a licence to voice their displeasure.
Yet the tragedy is these digital no-marks seldom seem to have the nous to realise they’re ostensibly just fodder for the relentless rolling omnipresence of the contemporary news cycle, which thrives on discontent and instability to justify their reporting of clickbait headlines exacerbated by the monstrous megalomania of MusknMeta. Remember, all you need is negativity, if you wanna be a wannabee!
This over-sensationalised, overly dramatic ‘breaking’ news culture and 24/7 quest for invasive notification-led entertainment has made the dull into delicious, the crap into credible. Everything is now a cynical PR campaign, and you don’t even need Edina’s Pop Specs to see that.
Case in point: having just won a national by-election in Makerfield that necessitated his stepping down as mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham arrived at Euston station today. A few minutes after the utterly spellbinding realisation that more than one person decided to hire helicopters just so they could provide their adoring audience with all-important “content” — an aerial view of the train snaking through North London, how exciting! How vital! How absorbing! — the cub reporter from the BBC was, unsurprisingly, the only one of the assembled pack of rabid dogs media throng to be granted a few words as Westminster’s newest MP made his way along the platform.
But that wasn’t enough. With cameraman in tow, our man from Aunty then felt compelled to rush over to some black gates near the taxi rank just so we could witness the world-altering revelation that not only is the all-conquering hero able to string a few sentences together but — shock, horror! — he’s also able to sit in the back of black cab too! In the medical profession we call this overkill. See the charade for yourself if you like. It‘s roughly at the five hour mark at this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink live action replay.
As far as general elections go, I voted for Labour twice under the halcyon days of Blair, but whether “old” or “new” there’s been no danger of a third occasion… yet. I’m not even on the electoral roll for a start. I have to admit, I do quite like Burnham, though. We’re only six months apart in age, and, happily, he’s also possessed of some sound policies, and is generally well regarded in the North West, where he was dubbed, it says here, the ‘King of the North’. He comes across as a well-rounded personality with a very personable manner and —crucially — is a natural and effective televisual communicator. Being a Scouser he’s never going to be short of personality, though in political terms, he’s already run twice for the Labour leadership and lost. Now he’s ditched the mayoralty top north quicker than you can say Corrie. Or Brookside, come to that.
On a human level I’m slightly sorry for the bland bureaucrat that is Keir Starmer. Despite having the vision of Stevie Wonder he’s a fairly decent, well-meaning individual — at least compared to Kemi the cunt and Far Rage — though I did always say he had the charisma of a wet weekend in Rhyll.
Unlucky for him, Starmer was the 13th Prime Minister in my lifetime. More telling is that he was only the fourth person to win an election and form a majority Labour government in his party’s 126 year history. Whatever the political affiliations, never before has a leader with such a huge mandate — I’m talking the number of seats won in the ‘loveless landslide’ of 2024 — been forced out of office so soon after. Yet it’s clear now that the reds won that poll despite Starmer, not because of him.
So I can say with some impartiality that Starmer rather reminded me of James Callaghan in a way: a tubby grey bespectacled man, awkward in his body language, hapless in his execution and always on the back foot, who the public never warmed to. Alas, before losing the 1979 election to Thatcher’s Conservatives even not-slim Jim managed to last three years in the top job, as did Heath, May and Johnson. Brown and Sunak less so. The less said about the lettuce the better.
As we’re name-crunching, only 15 premiers in UK history have had shorter tenures than Starmer. At the other end of the evolutionary scale a quintet of PMs in my lifetime did manage to tough it out in Downing Street for longer than four years, ie the average length of a parliament: Cameron (6 years, 63 days), Major (6 years, 155 days), Wilson (7 years, 279 days), Blair (10 years, 56 days) and the Iron Lady herself (11 years, 208 days).
Indeed, with Mrs T being the only leader to win and serve two full consecutive terms in the 20th century (and going on to win a record-breaking third the very month I became eligible to vote) Thatcher stands as the seventh longest serving British Prime Minister ever. It was a very, very long time (thanks, Gran). Yet it seems inconceivable such a length of stay will ever be surpassed, unless the British Ku Klux Klan or whatever they’re calling themselves this week complete their hostile takeover in the next few years and ban elections altogether, no doubt in tandem with the machinations running through the fevered fat-head of their orange pal across the pond right now. Talking of heads, if the crypto-Cromwellian Deform do get in, history suggests a certain Charlie will be nervously worrying about his.
Some sobering thoughts then, because I fear the prevailing trend is that unless the public finances are spectacularly turned around and people start to see a rise in living standards then the archaic Albion isle will be in an agonising terminal decline. Again, what type of loudmouth benefits from such disarray? And what was the name of that German man who came to prominence in the 1930s again?
In the long run all the malcontents and miseries are doing is handing eventful power to a ragbag rabble-rousing cult of psychotic haters and white supremacist fascists who will have zero idea (or even worse, inclination) how to fix the economy (stupid), but will have achieved the ultimate despot’s goal in power for power’s sake while demonising swathes of people and even entire countries — the very same creeping autocratic assholism we’re witnessing in the US, Russia, China, Turkey et al. Thus, I guarantee you the 2030s will make 1984 look like Winnie the Pooh.
Until that calamitous harbinger, if there has to be a ‘coronation’ then I’d be happy to allow my hat to go forward into several rings. It’s exceedingly well-proportioned and implacably iridescent in its shininess. Just don’t call me queen, though I suppose I could be Wayne King.
Steve Pafford
#Starmer
#streeting
#burnham
