Tag Archives: Screaming Lord Sutch

Everything you need to know about Britain’s upcoming election

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At long last, Britain has a date for its next election: July 4. We’ll get a new parliament, a new can of paint to splash over our problems, and if the polls are anything close to correct, a new prime minister. After much speculation and many rumors involving earlier (and later) dates, the announcement came on May 22. 

Why then? Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Every British government has a use-by date, and this particular government shows signs of curdling. The use-by date (to switch metaphors; sorry) has been lumbering toward us like some drunken Tory uncle. So Rishi Sunak, our prime minister du jour couldn’t put it off forever. And May 22 was a pretty good day to stand outside 10 Downing Street and make the announcement. 

Why? you ask ever so helpfully. (Thank you. You’re a wonderful audience.) Because it was raining, and what’s more British than standing in the rain and pretending you’re fine with it–in fact, you barely notice it. You don’t even bother with a raincoat. 

Irrelevant photo: A nifty program on my phone tells me this is a daisybush. Mt eyes, however, tell me that in real life it’s more of a vibrant pink than a lavender. Ah, well, it’s only here for filler.

At least that strikes me as very British, but then I’m not really British, I only pretend to be when I’m near a keyboard, so correct me if I’m wrong. Assuming, of course, that you actually know something on the subject. If you’re even less British than I am, do jump in but don’t expect to be taken seriously.

And if you’re entirely British? I still can’t promise to take you seriously. Them’s the risks. The choice is yours.

But back to Mr. du Jour. He might’ve gone over the top with that no-raincoat thing. Most of the people I know in Britain wear raincoats when it rains, or at least use umbrellas. Some wear raincoats when it doesn’t rain, because the weather might change its mind and start hurling water out of the sky at any minute. It’s Americans who don’t wear raincoats. Based on a sample of people who’ve come to visit us, Americans don’t own raincoats. When it rains, they wear cars.

I think something more lies behind Sunak’s timing, though. I believe he looked out the window, saw the rain, and like some Roman senator asking a priest what the insides of a poor dead chicken said about the future, he turned to a consultant or three and asked if rain meant it was an auspicious day to call an election.

Sure, they said, since he pays their invoices. Absolutely.

So out he went, into the rain, and someone blasted the song “Things Can Only Get Better” throughout his press conference. It’s the song Labour used in its 1997 campaign. 

*

For the record, Mr. du Jour didn’t have to stand in the rain. He has access to dry, indoor spaces, known as rooms, where press conferences can be held. Just after his announcement, the opposition leader, Keir Starmer, held a press conference in exactly such a space, silently making the point that his party has enough sense to come in out of the rain. 

Reporters have had fun with Sunak’s choices, which is probably their revenge for having had to stand in the rain with him while he struggled to be heard over the music. Even the papers you’d expect to be friendly ran headlines like “10 Drowning Street.” The hostile ones quoted members of Mr. du Jour’s own party who (usually anonymously) said things like, “I just don’t understand” the timing of the election, and, “This is madness.”

What they meant was, If we’d waited until the last possible moment, surely things could have only gotten better.

 

What the polls tell us

The polls, the tea leaves, and the chicken entrails all predict a wipeout for the Conservatives, but if you read them carefully they also say that people aren’t giddy about the Labour Party either. Or, presumably, anyone else, but Labour’s the biggest of the opposition parties, so let’s stay with them. 

Labour’s 20 points ahead of the Conservatives (actual numbers may vary depending on polling methods and timing) but, surprisingly, it isn’t any more popular or trusted than it was in 2015, when the Conservatives won a big majority. Even fewer people think it has a good group of leaders or understands the country’s problems. Keir Starmer’s popularity is right up there–or down there–with last week’s bacon sandwich. You know the one: you wrapped it in a paper napkin and put it in the refrigerator, knowing you’d never eat it but convinced that if you waited until it was inedible you wouldn’t be wasting perfectly good food.

Okay, the polls didn’t mention the bacon sandwich, but the head of Ipsos, one of the main polling agencies, said, “Starmer’s personal ratings are the lowest Ipsos has eve rseen for an opposition leader who’s so far ahead in the overall voting intention. It is more disgust at the Tories [that’s another name for the Conservatives–you’re welcome] than delight at what Labour offer that is driving politics.” 

 

So how’s the campaign going?

Things have indeed gotten  better, at least for anyone who appreciates absurdity. Mr. du Jour made a campaign stop in Northern Ireland’s Titanic Quarter, and until social media went batshit, nobody on his staff seemed to notice that the symbolism wasn’t what they’d hoped for.

But politics isn’t made by sinking ships alone, so Mr du Jour added a new policy to the doormat of unfulfilled old promises: elect us, he said, and we’ll reinstate national service (that’s a polite term for the draft). Eighteen-year-olds will have to either serve a year in the military or find a charity willing to put up with them for a year’s worth of weekends. Or something along those lines. Details to be worked out later. Or not, since his party is unlikely to get re-elected.

It’s all pretty sketchy–he didn’t announce it until he couldn’t be expected to follow through  –but the sketch has been enough to set people screaming. And by people I don’t mean people I happen to know and agree with. A former chief of the naval staff–who, to be clear, I don’t hang out with–called the plan “bonkers.” Defence needs more money, he said, and this would suck money out. A former chief of the general staff called it “electoral opportunism.” And a former Tory defence minister said, “I very much doubt whether it’s been thought through.”

That’s not unlikely. Just two days before the plan was announced, the current defence minister said the government wasn’t planning to reinstate national service in any form. It “could damage morale, recruitment and retention, and would consume professional military and naval resources.” And if that wouldn’t be enough of a deterrent, it “would be difficult to find a proper and meaningful role for” the draftees.

I’m sure if you asked him today, he’d tell you it’s a great plan.

 

Meanwhile, in other electoral news

Back in early May, which now seems like a lifetime ago, London was electing a mayor, and one candidate, Count Binface, got more votes than the hard right Britain First Party. 

Count Binface? He’s a guy who runs for office periodically, appearing in a costume that includes a garbage bin that goes on his head. It’s worth following the link to see a picture. I’m sure his candidacy explains a lot about British politics, although I can’t figure out what, so let’s stick with fact: he more or less replaces the late, lamented Screaming Lord Sutch, of the Monster Raving Loony Party, who was a hard act to follow, having bagged the all-time best name.

The count does his best, however. On his website, he not only brags about beating Britain First, he also claims (accurately if not entirely fairly) to have gotten more votes for mayor of London than Rishi Sunak got for prime minister. The reason it’s not quite fair is that Sunak didn’t run for prime minister. That takes his vote count down to zero. One of the many quirks of the British political system is that if a party with a large enough parliamentary majority dethrones or otherwise mislays its prime minister, it can choose a new one without holding an election or in any other way consulting the electorate. All they have to do is follow their own rules to slip one into place. So our last two prime ministers, Rishi Sunak and Liz Tress, were chosen by the small number of people who voluntarily and inexplicably made themselves members of the Conservative Party.

 

But life in Britain isn’t all about politics 

I’d call this light relief, but maybe the election’s light relief and this is the sober stuff. Your call.

In Cheshire, someone brought a closed box into an animal hospital and explained that she’d rescued a baby hedgehog from the roadside but was worried about it, because it wasn’t touching the cat food she’d set in there for it. To keep from stressing it, she hadn’t touched it when she picked it up, just scooped it into the box, and she’d barely allowed herself to peek in, but she’d seen enough to be worried: it hadn’t “moved or pooped all night.”

The veterinarians boldly opened the box and found the bobble top from a gray knit cap. It was, as described, not eating, moving, or pooping, and they were unable to revive it, but somebody involved did leak the story to the press.

Britain’s great salad crisis, and other news from Britain

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As I write this, the UK’s in the midst of a salad shortage. The critics are talking mostly about the tomatoes, but if you listen carefully (keep the noise down out there, will you?), you can hear the lettuces and all their salady friends singing backup.

What’s happening is that tomatoes are scarce, and if you find any on the store shelves they’re expensive. They’re also, as Hawley’s Small and Unscientific Survey informs us, sorry looking specifmens. 

How short are the shortages? Not long ago, I was in my local supermarket looking for what I call an eggplant and the British call an aubergine. When I couldn’t find it, I asked a guy stocking sliced meats nearby if I could ask him a fruit-and-veg question.

“We haven’t got any,” he said wearily.

Since the fruit and veg section wasn’t completely empty, I told him what I was looking for anyway and he pointed them out. He seemed to be relieved to get rid of me without hearing any more moaning about tomatoes.

Irrelevant photo: Lesser celandine–one of the first wildflowers of the season, currently appearing at the base of a hedgerow near you. Or if not near you, at least near me.

So where’d the tomatoes go? As usual, the answer depends on who you ask. Everyone agrees that cold weather in Spain and Morocco are part of the problem. Most will add that growers in Britain didn’t plant much–or anything–this season because at this time of year they have to grow the tender little beasts in heated greenhouses and high energy prices have made that somewhere in between not economically viable and too depressing to even hallucinate about. 

You could add, if you like, that climate change will be doing this sort of thing regularly and we might want to, ahem, think about that. Or you could skip that and ask the weary guy in the supermarket what’s happened to the tomatoes, hoping to get an answer you like better. 

UK growers will add that they’re being put off not only by high fuel prices but by the low prices that supermarkets are willing to pay them. Consumers will choke on their turnips and ask what low prices the growers have in mind, exactly, because prices have gone up to maybe-I’ll-make-you-a-salad-for-your-birthday levels.

Why am I talking about turnips? We’ll get to that.

Some people will add that Brexit has a lot to do with the shortages. It’s made the UK more difficult and more expensive to export to, so sellers move it to the back of the line (or queue if you’re British), and when a product is scarce guess who drops off. Reports from France say they have no shortages of salad veg, although the prices have gone up. 

But as any British news addict can tell you, Brexit was supposed to let the country negotiate more favorable trade deals than it had in the EU. What happened? My impression is that it hasn’t been a screaming success. The new deal with Morocco has apparently made us harder to trade with, not easier, again moving us to the back of the line. 

Sorry, I don’t know the details of the deal and don’t have the oomph it would take to chase them down, that’s why I dropped in a well-worn apparently. I trust they’re suitably absurd.

Since we’ve been having shortages of fairly random products for some time now (I work at our village shop and it makes me aware of how random they are, and how frequent), we could expand the question and add that the just-in-time business model means any hiccup in the supply chain (Covid, anyone?) will lead to shortages of all sorts of products.

It wouldn’t be hard to find people who’ll add that it’s not a viable long-term strategy to depend as heavily as the UK does on India, China, and other countries that produce goods cheaply and ship them long distances. 

But back to our salad crisis: The environment minister, Therese Coffey, is trying to guide us through it by encouraging us to eat less imported food and cherish our turnips, which grow locally in whatever ridiculous weather we throw at them. 

Are we cherishihng them? Well, the head of an organic vegetable box delivery company is all for eating locally but said, “Winter turnips are an abomination. . . . We don’t grow them. Wouldn’t want to inflict them on our customers.”

Coffey’s intervention hasn’t quieted the tomatoratti, but that’s okay, she didn’t expect to. The government strategy is to keep us making jokes about turnips until warmer weather comes, when the government will claim credit for the victorious return of salad. Any day now, they’ll point that the shortage started under Tony Blair and was Labour’s fault. 

*

To ease us through these trying times, the Guardian devoted a two-page spread to recipes that substitute everything short of socket wrenches for tomatoes. You can, it turns out, make a red pasta sauce out of carrots, celery, butternut squash, and beets–or as the British call them, beetroot. Add vinegar, olive oil, honey, onion, and garlic. Cook everything, blitz it, add fine herbs, and then, whatever you do, don’t serve it to me. I’d get as much joy out of cooking my spaghetti with red food coloring.

You could also forgo the redness and make a sauce involving butternut squash, egg yolks, and yogurt. Or one that uses onion, carrots, ground beef, toasted oats, and black pudding.

I know, I shouldn’t dismiss this stuff without trying it, but I’ve been cooking long enough and I’ve lived in Britain long enough to have learned–or to think I’ve learned–when to look a recipe in the eye and say, “Sorry, but the kitchen is closed for repairs.”

Is it a cheap shot to make fun of British cooks and their recipes? Probably, but they do seem to get carried away with themselves. I mean, surely there are a hundred non-tomato ways to serve noodles without resorting to beets or black pudding. And I don’t say that to diminish Britain as a nation. It’s a wonderful country and I hope it survives the current government, but that doesn’t mean I have to retire my taste buds.

I’d love to give you a link to the article but I couldn’t find it online. Do you suppose someone thought better of it?

 

And since we’re talking about British politics…

I haven’t written about the Monster Raving Loony Party since early in my blogging non-career, when I had only three followers. Now that I’m up to four, one of which is a lawnmower company that subscribed but never hits Like, so I have to assume they don’t read the posts–

Where were we? Surely it’s time to detour back to that most British of political parties.

The Monster Raving Loonies were formed 40 years ago, in, um, whatever year that was (it’s 2023 now, in case that helps), when David Sutch ran in a Bermondsey by-election under the name Screaming Lord Sutch. 

He’d been running since the 1960s, primarily as a way to publicize his music, although you could probably say that his political non-career eclipsed his musical one. 

Or skip the “probably. Of course you could say it. The question is, would you be right? I haven’t a clue. The point is that this time it was different: He wasn’t running as one lone loony, he was at the forefront of an entire party of loonies.

In its 40 years, the party’s run candidates in 76 by-elections (they’re the off-schedule ones that happen when an incumbent dies or is convicted of larceny and needs to be replaced) and in every general election. Its candidates have included R. U. Seerius, the Flying Brick, Bananaman Owen, Mad Cow-Girl, Sir Oink A-Lot and Lady Lily The Pink. Not one of them has won and the party’s current leader, Howling Laud Hope, says that any candidate getting too many votes will be kicked out.

Embarrassingly, some of its policies have become law, including pet passports (adopted in 2000), a change to pub opening hours (adopted in 2005), and giving the vote to 16-year-olds (okay, only in some elections and only in Scotland and Wales, but still). The last change must’ve been too much for the party, because it’s now calling for 5-year-olds to be given the vote. 

The country’s current political state doesn’t make a good argument for adult competence, so I could be won over on this one. 

Howling Laud Hope now describes his party as the official think tank of Parliament.

It’s proposing a high-speed rail line to the Falkland Islands and “a year off from listening to our politicians.”

In 1985, the Conservative government tried to shoo the Loonies off the national stage by making candidates put up a deposit that they’d only get back if they won 5% of the vote. The Monster Raving Loonies coughed up the cash. 

How seriously should we take the party? In 2019, one perennial candidate announced that he wouldn’t be running this time because December was “a bloody stupid time for a general election.” On the other hand, John Major described Screaming Lord Sutch as by far his most intelligent opponent.

What’s the party’s future looks like? Screaming Lord Sutch died in 199 and the current chair is in his 80s (which I have to say looks younger all the time), so it might be time to talk about a replacement.

“We might just elect someone’s parrot,” Howling Laud Hope said.