Does good news ever comes without a bit of bad news to balance it out? The good news is that Britain has, at long last, put grownups in charge of the government and the country’s a more stable place. On the other hand, I’m not having half as much fun with the news. 

But don’ lose hope. The Conservative Party’s in the midst of a leadership contest. 

Why? Because tradition has it that a party leader who lost an election is no longer suited to be head of the party. You’d have thought fourteen years of running the country would’ve convinced the Conservatives that failure is no obstacle to leadership, but it hasn’t, so they’re looking for a new leader. 

What will the new leader need? First, the backing of 10 Members of Parliament–presumably from their own party, although I can imagine an MP from a rival party thinking it would be a great move to endorse–oh, say, whoever the British equivalent of JD Vance might be. 

But no, probably not. 

MPs can only back one candidate, and once nominations close, the Conservative MPs will vote and the top four will go to the next stage. Those four will need to come up with £50,000. If they do, they get to sell their goods at the party convention in the fall. Their money will go toward paying for the convention. 

After the convention and a few dog-and-pony shows around the country, the party’s MPs will vote again, choosing the final two. 

Have you kept track of which shells are hiding the remaining peas, because I’m not sure I have? 

The remaining two candidates now need to come up with £150,000. Why? Because raising that much money is taken as a sign that a candidate is a good fundraiser. 

Being a good fundraiser is taken as a sign that the candidate is a good leader. This doesn’t entirely explain how things have gone so wrong for the party in the past fourteen years, but it could be part of the explanation.

The candidates aren’t allowed to spend more than £400,000 on their campaigns. That’s probably in total, at all stages, but I can’t swear to that. 

After all this spending and eliminating and moving the shells around, the party’s members choose between the two remaining candidates. 

And after that? The rest of us ask, What were you thinking?

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One of the current crop of contenders, Tom Tugendhat, started his campaign with the slogan

Together we can, 

Unite the party. 

Rebuild trust. 

Defeat Labour.

The capitalization isn’t his (his was all caps), but the line breaks are. When someone noticed that the first letters in each line spell out TURD, the slogan was withdrawn.

Could I make this stuff up? I wish. 

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And in late news from the election, Jacob Rees-Mogg not only lost his seat in the House of Commons, he had to stand next to a candidate wearing a baked bean balaclava to hear the vote count read. Barmy Brunch was a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate running on a platform of introducing a statutory brunch hour, when all workplaces would have toMake stop and serve brunch. His slogan in Make Brunch Great Again, which at least doesn’t spell out turd.

What (if you’re not British) you ask does that have to do with baked beans? One of the mysteries of British culture is people’s attachment to baked beans. They’re as essential to a full English (or Welsh, or Scottish, or I assume Northern Irish) breakfast as air is to life. So a statutory brunch hour? Yup, baked beans. 

No, I can’t explain it, but I can report that people also eat them on toast and on baked potatoes. Voluntarily. 

Mr. Brunch lost the £500 deposit every candidate has to pay to run in a general election. They get it back if they receive at least 5% of the vote. He got 211 out of 51,267. You’re welcome to figure out what percentage that is. I don’t dare, but it’s less than 5. I expect he’d tell us it was money well spent.

I’m indebted to Fraggle for sending me a link to this priceless piece of political news. I wouldn’t stand a chance of understanding British political culture without it.

 

Politics in the US

I’m originally from the US, but I’ve lived in Britain for the past seventeen years, which is one reason I don’t write much about US politics. The more powerful reason is that what’s happening over there scares me shitless and that makes it hard to keep my sense of humor functioning. 

However, JD Vance’s entry into the vice presidential race is luring me back. 

If you’re not following US politics, Vance is Donald Trump’s running mate, and one of his first contributions to the race was an attack on childless cat ladies who live miserable lives–and apparently run the Democratic Party, and through it, the country. 

As a childless cat lady, I’m honored to be on his enemies list. I haven’t noticed the Democratic Party taking my opinions to heart, but maybe it’s all too subtle for me to see how it works. Perhaps he could mansplain it to me.

Ever since his comment, cat ladies have been coming out of the woodwork, gleefully forming imaginary organizations along the lines of Childless Cat Ladies for Harris. Dog ladies and men of various descriptions–eaten with envy–are announcing similar groups but without getting the same traction as cat ladies. Sorry, folks, it’s just not the same. Social media’s awash in cat lady memes. The best of them urges people NOT to send used kitty litter to Vance at 37 West Broad Street, room 300, Columbus OH 43215.

Given the price of international mail, I wouldn’t dream of it. 

Among the childless people Vance has mentioned are Pete Buttigeig, who has two children, and Kamala Harris, who has two stepchildren. But then, Vance also thinks Britain is an Islamist country, so we shouldn’t expect him to have a close relationship to facts. Besides, Buttigeig is gay as a bedbug, so his kids don’t count. As for Harris, those are stepkids, so where does she get off caring about them?

Vance seems to have done as much to energize Democrats as Harris herself has. Welcome to the race, JD. 

 

Rewilding in Sussex

An effort to rewild an area of Sussex has recruited dog walkers–and more to the point, their dogs–to spread seeds. The theory behind this is that wolves–which have been extinct in Britain since 1760–used to roam, on an average, 20 km a night, getting wildflower and grass seeds stuck in their fur as they went, and dropping them somewhere further on. So dogs are being recruited as the new wolves.

Thank you wolves. The fairy tales that left us terrified of you never mentioned that, but then they were written by humans. Sorry. We all have our biases and we’re sorry about the extinction bit. Really, really sorry. 

The Sussex project is based on one in Chile, which regenerated an area that had been devastated by wildfires. 

Dog walkers in the Sussex wildlife area can pick up doggy backpacks that have been poked full of holes and hold seeds mixed with sand. The person walks on a path. The dog runs wherever it wants, and the seeds filter out as it goes. And the dog walker doesn’t have to feel guilty about letting the dog off the leash.

The sand not only makes the seed go further but lets the rewilders see where the dogs have been. 

The project’s seeing some success already, but since most of the seeds are perennials, they’ll take a few years to establish themselves.