I Blame You

Ben Wildsmith

The problem with democracy is the demos.

You’ve seen them, standing in doorways you need to walk through, screaming at their awful children, walking their overbred dogs, kissing their hideous spouses, pulling in front of you on the motorway, dropping their fast food wrappers in areas of natural beauty, throwing acid at each other, ghosting you after dates, filling their faces with Dubai chocolate, keeping Ant & Dec in work, ‘curating’ everything, saying your call is important to them, injecting live botulism into their faces, policing your language, using language thoughtlessly, putting sardines in the staff room fridge, denying the holocaust, saying ‘ourselves’ instead of ‘us’, sitting next to you on the bus, being absolutely certain that God exists/doesn’t exist, putting the milk in first, and farting in bed.

All these bastards have a vote, and we haven’t even started on their political views yet.

Awful people

I’m writing this with the polls still open in the English elections, you’ll probably be reading it when the results are known. Let’s have a prediction: some awful people will have done better than some other awful people and both sets of awful people are appearing on television to explain why this proves they aren’t as awful as you think.

William Hill’s aren’t offering odds on that outcome, unfortunately.

If that seems unnecessarily cynical, then I assume you are a recent immigrant to the UK. Bright-eyed and hopeful, you have landed here full of admiration for the Mother of Parliaments, Magna Carta, Black Rod, and Emu.

Sham

Sadly, you’ve arrived too late to the party. British democracy is a derided sham that recalls the clapped-out piers of seaside England. It’s current star, Nigel Farage, is John Osborne’s Archie Rice made real and handed a pass to the Whitehouse. I have a go, don’t I ladies?

If Farage is the pier’s disreputable comedian, Keir Starmer is a barnacle clinging to its underside, unloved and motionless.

How have we ended up with him?

Politicians are inherently unpopular, it takes a healthy dollop of charisma, speaking talent, and originality for them to be liked by a noticeable minority of the public.

Starmer, the Morrissey impersonator nobody asked for, has all the conviction of a porn actor with erectile dysfunction. Relentlessly humourless, he warns us of terrible dangers ahead whilst changing absolutely nothing of consequence.

‘Yeah, things have got worse so you’ll, like have to have less stuff. Vote for me.’

Single-issue obsessions

We deserve this, though. Our politics has descended into an indulgent mess of single-issue obsessions. People are content to funnel every debate through their own certainties with no regard for the wider picture. Our national conversation has become a babble of cross-talking irrelevance.

‘What do you think about bringing in a land tax?’

How can I answer that if you don’t know what a woman is?

‘Should social media sites be regulated as publishers?’

You won’t have ‘social media sites’ when we’re underwater due to climate change.

‘Do you think Wales should have control over revenue from the Crown estates?’

LOL, it would only control them at 20 MPH!

‘Did you see that piece in Nation.Cymru about the effect of urbanisation on wildlife?’

Nation.Cymru published a gender critical writer. Nobody should read anything in it ever.

‘I am in agony with a broken leg.’

Shouldn’t have had the COVID jab then, should you?

‘Look, a spring flower has opened before your very eyes, aren’t you in awe of our existence?’

IMMIGRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Corrupted

The individualism that made democracy possible has been corrupted so that instead of conversations, we are all yelping our agendas at each other as if we were kingdoms of one.

It’s plausible that China, unconstrained by election pledges and the worry of elections to come, will emerge victorious in the trade war because it isn’t democratic.

As we neglect our democracy and allow it to become the plaything of conmen, leadership of the world is transferring out of the democratic sphere.