Given what’s happened since her death on September 8, it would’ve been fitting for Queen Elizabeth II, in her final days, to have said, in an echo of Louis XV, “Après moi, le déluge.” Because it’s taken no time at all, since her passing, for the British ship of state to run aground.
In her last official act, on September 6, the Queen invited Liz Truss to succeed Boris Johnson as PM. Johnson – whose Spectator columns I’d read with enthusiasm for years – had been swept into power in a 2019 election in which the Tories won an 80-seat majority. The mandate: to get Brexit done. Boris got it done – sort of – but otherwise, in many ways, he spectacularly betrayed basic Conservative principles.
Backed by many voters who hoped he’d be a British Trump, Boris did little or nothing to tackle his country’s version of the swamp. On his watch, English police ignored Muslim rape gangs and arrested law-abiding citizens for criticizing Islam online. Boris championed strict COVID lockdown rules and mandatory vaccination, but broke the lockdown himself and then lied about it – a move that was used as an excuse to give him the heave-ho.
For me, the big lesson of Boris’s downfall was that a terrific political journalist doesn’t necessarily make a decent prime minister. As it happens, during the last months of his premiership I was fitfully making my way through Charles Moore’s magnificent three-volume biography of Margaret Thatcher. What a woman! The more I read, the more I admire her. It really can feel as if she was born to be prime minister. She had what it took – unshakable core beliefs, strong self-discipline, excellent management skills, etc. – to rescue Britain from socialism and help bring down the USSR. Why wasn’t Boris able to do something similar for the UK – and the world – at a time when globalism was threatening liberal democracy? Could it be he just wasn’t wired for the job? Alas, some writers aren’t good for anything other than writing.
Truss won the nod to replace Johnson via a ridiculous process, reminiscent of the game Musical Chairs, whereby Tory politicians knock off candidates one by one until a single individual is left standing. Tory voters reportedly preferred the smart, articulate Kemi Badenoch – who voted for Brexit, rejects critical race theory, admires Roger Scruton and Thomas Sowell, and supports immigration controls. But she got voted off the island soon enough. In the U.S., imbeciles like Kamala Harris have risen to power because they’re “women of color.” Badenoch is one woman of color who deserved to reach the top. There was a very good chance that she could’ve been Britain’s Trump. Much of the electorate would’ve loved it. But the electorate didn’t matter. The party hacks said no, and that was that.
Oh, well. At least Truss was better than some of the alternatives. But now, 44 days in, she’s out – the shortest-serving British prime minister ever. The 21st century’s Lady Jane Grey. The Tippecanoe of No. 10.
What happened? Truss’s own Tories, including her finance minister, resisted her low-tax, free-market agenda from the git-go. She fired her Chancellor of the Exchequer on October 14. She forced her home secretary, Suella Braverman, an advocate of strict immigration curbs, to resign on Wednesday, supposedly over the kind of minor e-mail flub that Hillary Clinton commits a dozen times before breakfast. The Tories’ Chief Whip, Wendy Morton, quit the same day. And then on Thursday, Truss announced that she’d be leaving, too.
On Wednesday and Thursday, one British TV commentator after another expressed absolute astonishment at these developments. A woman on TalkTV said that Westminster was a site of “complete and utter dysfunction.” On GB News, Nigel Farage declared that the Tory Party “is now dead and it needs to be replaced.” Others echoed his verdict, with some adding that Farage himself, founder of UKIP and the Brexit Party, needs to form yet another new party, one that actually represents the low-tax, anti-immigration, pro-Brexit views of most Englishmen living outside of London. The Tories, as podcaster Connor Tomlinson observed, are now “a Blairite institution entirely.”
I can’t pretend to follow all the nuances of British politics: keeping up with them these days is a full-time job. But a long list of Brits whom I respect – Farage included – have characterized the takedown of the Truss government as “a globalist coup.” In the U.S., we wonder who’s really calling the shots in the White House, given that Joe Biden is a corpse; in Britain, one TV talking head after another has declared that the real power in today’s Tory Party is the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, an old Commons hand who’s previously served as Foreign, Culture, and Health Secretary – and who was an ardent Remainer. Farage even said that Hunt now “has total control of the country” and called him “president of the UK.”
Why should Americans care about Britain’s government? Because the parallels are stunning. Trump, who unlike the self-seeking, short-sighted empty suits in the establishment wings of both major U.S. parties actually represented the interests of the American majority, got into office only to spend his term fighting off efforts by the D.C. swamp to take him out – after which, despite his remarkable accomplishments, his immense popularity, and Biden’s status as a cadaver, he lost re-election under exceedingly dubious circumstances.
The situation in the UK is strikingly similar: both the Tories and Labour are dominated by blinkered, mediocre careerists whose personal ambitions and fealty to woke ideology, the globalist agenda, and big corporate interests (but not small businesses) far outweigh any loyalty they feel to the voters who put them in office. “The Westminster establishment,” thundered GB News’s Dan Wootton on Thursday, “is stacked against the people – and thus against democracy itself!”
However imperfectly and partially, Truss represented something of a reaction to the Westminster consensus and a threat to the House of Commons swamp culture. But she crumbled quickly. Who will replace her? There’s talk of Boris coming back. But at the moment the big money is on former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. On the one hand, Sunak, a graduate of Oxford and Stanford, was pro-Brexit. On the other, he’s a high-taxing big spender who’s notorious for boosting a global minimum tax on multinationals and IT firms and for proposing a “green levy” that would’ve raised gas taxes for the usual cockamamie environmental reasons.
In short, he’s the Tory equivalent of a RINO. Last spring, it emerged that Sunak and his wife, a wealthy Indian fashion designer, are both registered, apparently for tax purposes, as permanent U.S. residents. Such a revelation would’ve destroyed some political careers; but, as with Ilhan Omar’s marriage to her brother, Sunak easily survived the unearthing of his shady shenanigans. On Thursday night, Mark Steyn of GB News labeled Sunak, quite soberingly, “the IMF candidate, the Klaus Schwab candidate.”
In 2016, UK voters defied their globalist political establishment and stunned the world by choosing Brexit. Britain First! Later that year, U.S. voters defied their globalist political establishment and stunned the world by electing Trump. America First! Now, six years later, in Britain as in America, the globalist political establishment is striving, with the utmost cynicism and naked self-interest, to thwart the aspirations of the electorate – and thereby make a mockery of democracy itself in the two countries that are the ultimate symbols thereof. If what’s going on in Britain now is really a globalist coup – an attempt, among much else, to undo Brexit – it’s pretty much the equivalent of the ridiculous “insurrection” hearings and sundry anti-MAGA mischief in the U.S. whose only purpose is to keep Trump from running again and to intimidate his supporters into silence.
On both sides of the Atlantic, lovers of freedom need to quash this deviltry – pronto.
So the apparatchiks won again?
To me, I was thinking that she tried to make big changes too fast. Not that she was wrong, but change often upsets some people much more than it pleases the beneficiaries.
I commented on the Daily Mail Online that globalist bankers were behind the coup and withing moments was notified that my comment would not be published because of numerous “complaints.’ No swear words or name calling, just the truth. How does that song go? “Crawl Britannia. Britannia rules the knaves. For Britons will forever be slaves.”
Some of my comments don’t show up at Daily Mail because I sign in with my Twitter account. And, well, you know.
Akso she had no mandate for her radical lurch to the Right. The Tory activists made the same mistake as the Labour ones who elected Corbyn leader, and lost them the next election. We Brits are mainly a moderate bunch, and don’t like extremes.
Liz Truss was brought down by the bond vigilantes. Tax cuts in the face of spending increases mean debt which the market refused to buy. The BoE raising interest rates broke the pension funds which were using derivatives to bet on low rates. Truss inherited a bloated budget with no way to fund it in the face of rising interest rates. Her successor won’t be able to cut spending and survive the electorate and the bond vigilantes will punish more borrowing. Game over!
We’re next. Who knows what will break as the Fed tightens.
Thank you for highlighting what brought her down.
It is insane that commentary on an anti-progressive site completely missed what happened.
It is like the guy wrote if after glancing at headlines.
Yet another new party will do nothing but split the real conservative vote even more. Forage sounds like a broken record on this.
One correction: It was Louis XIV, not Louis XV, who declared “Après moi, le déluge.”
Nope, it was Louis XV. Louis XIV said “L’etat, c’est moi.”
My apologies, Mr. Bawer. I should have fact checked before posting!
De Gaulle, I believe, said it. Was he the original ? I don’t know.
Some quote it with “nous” instead of “moi.”
That is the quote of XV.
“Trump, who unlike the self-seeking, short-sighted empty suits in the establishment wings of both major U.S. parties actually represented the interests of the American majority, got into office only to spend his term fighting off efforts by the D.C. swamp to take him out – after which, despite his remarkable accomplishments, his immense popularity, and Biden’s status as a cadaver, he lost re-election under exceedingly dubious circumstances.”
Um, no. Trump never won a majority of the popular vote. His approval ratings never rose above the 40s. He is adored by, at best, 20% of the country. The rest are either skeptical or outright despise him. Despite his and this writer’s lies, he lost reelection fair and square by millions of votes. In short, he does not enjoy and never enjoyed “immense popularity.” Stop fooling yourselves that Trump is adored by anyone outside his core base of idolators.
He won an election rather than stealing one.
Trump lost. There was no stolen election. You’re a liar.
He won a landslide and you’re a fool as well as a liar.
He didn’t win at all. He got beat by several million votes, just like the first time, except this time the Electoral College went against him. You’re a liar and so is Trump.
At least we know you will go to your grave being an anti-Trump obsessive
Here’s an idea. Set up a picture of Trump in the subway, near a trash can, take some quick glue and glue your hands to the floor and start yelling “Trump lost. There was no stolen election!”
People will 1) either ignore you, or 2) use you for target practice with their trash. That should be a hoot. A true picture of a true anti-Trump obsessive.
At least I’m not a LARPing treason monkey, my friend.
I see our rezidentura Brit Trump hater is back with his usual America envy. And, as always, Trump lives rent free in the empty space where your grey matter use to be.
Can’t wait for you to start calling for summary executions of the “core base of Trump idolators”.
Can’t wait for the mid terms. Your kind will get blown out in the House and that will be the end of your favorite TV show after Jan 1….the J6 Kangaroo Court hour. I would expect most of the J6 political prisoners will be released. And then the lawsuits against the government will commence.
Why is it that leftists like you never seem to get any smarter?
I see you’re back with your usual blizzard of irrelevancies. I notice that at no point do you deny anything I said about Trump’s popularity.
I don’t have to refute anything you say, other than Trump still draws tens of thousands to his rallies. Pedo Joe can’t find the bathroom and shakes hands with invisible people.
If Trump wasn’t so popular people like you wouldn’t be obsessing over him 24/7.
As I said, Trump is extremely popular WITH HIS BASE. They would do literally anything for him, including commit treason and, I imagine, mass suicide. Outside his base, however, among, you know, sane people, he’s always been unpopular. The numbers don’t lie. Man up and deal with it.
Standard crap from a lefty. You think by just stating the election was won fair and square that you have established the truth. There is much verified evidence that there was much cheating around the country by Dems, very little of it investigated and explored by leftist courts. Trump is loved for his accomplishments in the face of never ending slander, false accusations of collusion with the Russians ( while it is clear that Biden is guilty of everything the left falsely accuses Trump of). He did what was good for the people of the USA while Biden and company are working for China and Russia. They bribed him through Hunter and he has done whatever he can to enrich and empower them while diminishing and disarming the American people. He is a traitor who hides his evil intent and greed behind his dementia.with millions
Your point about Biden hiding his evil machinations behind his dementia is very interesting. He is more evil than demented. He (“the Big Guy”) is so guilty of bribery and conspiracy with the Chinese and Ukranians etc. through his bagman son and brother that he’s chosen the dementia act to escape responsibility or punishment. He’s kind of like that big NewYork Mafia Lord Vincent Gigante who used the dementia act to escape responsibility for all his crimes and murders to remain free for decades. The Biden crime family is a little bit more sophisticated than Vinnie “the chin” Gigante, but not much more.
There is no verified evidence of mass fraud. You’re a liar. So is Trump.
Trump is not loved by the majority of Americans and never has been, as all the objective evidence shows.
He is also a demented treason monkey who tried to overthrow the US government and is personally responsible for deaths of everyone who died during his treason riot. He should go to jail for life.
The “treason riot” resulted in the death of one unarmed women who was shot to death by a policeman. No one else died during the, so called, insurrection. (So called, because the insurrectionists did not bring any guns to overthrow a nuclear armed state)
The treason riot resulted in the death of one treason monkey who got what she thoroughly deserved. Michael Byrd is my hero.
As to the rest, a large number of police were grievously injured and several were so deeply traumatized they committed suicide afterwards. Trump should be charged with their murder.
It was the declared intent of the treason monkey to murder elected officials. They had weapons of various kinds in order to do so. When you’re a rampaging mob, you don’t need guns to kill people, although it seems that several did have guns.
You’re a liar.
Accusing one of lying without evidence is easy if one can’t prove it even to themself.
Reading through your comments makes me think you’re a troll or someone who doesn’t think independently of what the government wants them to believe.
Carry-on useful idiot.
Claiming a stolen election without evidence is treason. Trying to overthrow the US govenrment on the basis of that claim is treason.
Your desperation from 3000 miles away is showing again. You should really seek help, especially after November 8.
Your desperation from 3000 miles away is showing again. You should really seek help, especially after November 8.
I see ‘treason monkey’ is your newest favorite and childish insult. What’s it like not to be able effect any influence on anything or anybody. Do you like seeing how disliked you are through the downvotes?
Ok treason monkey. How’s the insurrection going?
Your claim of no massive fraud is refuted by the Democrats and the media saying, “There was not massive fraud that changed the results of the election.” They started with “no fraud” and then “no massive fraud.” The had to qualify their lies even more to make it harder to argue with. Next will be “There was no massive fraud that changed the results of the election that you can do anything about before the next election.”
It’s absurd to say “no fraud” whatsoever, because even one case of fraud would invalidate it, but “no massive fraud” is irrefutable. Innumerable Republican officials confirmed it and were outraged by Trump’s treason monkey lies.
You’re a liar.
Trump is simply not loved by you. Since you have probably never met a MAGA person face to face you have no idea who we are and how many in this country support Trump. There is a reason why so many America First Republicans seek out and want the Trump endorsement.
There is a reason why no one wants Pedo Joe’s endorsement and actively avoid him. The Democrats will lose bigly on November 8.
You are a silly childish troll who seems to have a new toy to play with….your little treason monkey winky. Your obsession with Trump grows more desperate and moronic with each post. You have no idea what really happened on that day. And the J6 Kangaroo court has been a ratings bust. They are now reduced to jailing people who simply defied a subpoena and broke no laws. I wonder why Lois Lerner and the Kenyan Kommunist’s wing man Eric Holder were allowed to ignore Republican subpoenas. After all they were Obama goons.
As always you are a hypocrite, a non-entity and a worthless foreigner. I would like to congratulate the Tories on turning your pathetic country into a soon to be failed state by getting rid of the P.M. who (the horror) wanted to lower taxes. Looks like you will have a P.M. who’s name no one can pronounce or the tousle haired fat guy again. And once again, nothing will change. Can you say the Islamic Republic of the U.K.?
As usual, you respond with a blizzard of irrelevant invective. Well sorry, I’ve seen the numbers and the numbers don’t lie. Trump is unpopular. You’re so far up Trump’s rear that you can’t see it.
And I’ve seen the videos and pictures from J6. Don’t try to gaslight or lie to me about it. It won’t work. It was a mob assault on the Capitol by a gang of treason monkeys. The cops were heroes, Michael Byrd foremost among them, and as I’ve said before, it’s a shame they didn’t have machine guns, preferably M60s.
There has been no verified evidence of mass fraud. Numerous Republican officials from across the country confirmed that and pleaded with Trump to stop his lies, because they knew his treason monkeys would get violent. They were right. The courts laughed Trumps treason monkeys out of court because they had no evidence and mostly didn’t have the guts to even charge fraud, because they knew what would happen if they perjured themselves. Trump lost. Grow the f— up and get over it.
Treason monkeys here, treason monkeys there, treason monkeys everywhere. Are you 5 years old?
You are truly an idiot with a one track mind. The only real question is what do you get out of your constant obsession with Trump, J6 and the treason you see everywhere, except that no one is being charged with treason. Don’t you think that Merritless Garland would have tried that by now.
The only people committing treason work at the DOJ and the FBI.
It must really suck to know that, deep in that hole in the middle of your chest wear that dried up heart of yours used to be, you can’t change a thing in this country, about 10 people or so read your mindless garbage every day and the number of downvotes you accumulate each day is astonishing.
In many ways you are not unlike the other two losers here, Say No To Teabaggers and THX. Both have uninformed one track minds as well, and they keep repeating the same uniformed garbage in every post. And like you they accumulate the downvotes by the bushel full.
Take the hint….focus on your rapidly falling apart country, even though there is not much going on there.
I think the US is probably beyond saving. Basically, it’s a country where rich people get whatever they want and everybody else can f— off and die. Still, treason is treason, and when the treason monkeys come out it’s worth batting them down. Or, as in the case of Ashli Babbitt, execute them.
Having scrolled down as far as time allows me, I have to think that you two guys need to have a beer or three together, a la the Odd Couple. I’d love to join you! The Kibitzer
So, Ol Uncle Joe recieved 81 million votes? the most by any presidential candidate ever? You choose to believe that?
Ya know people like you who believe anything the media and government say are amazing to speak with.
is it more of a stretch to believe that the government and media are batting a 1000% and are as pure as the wind driven snow or that they maybe telling us stories?
remember, this is the same government that said, there are no aliens for 70 years and then turns around and tells us, yeah we were lying we have evidence of alien space craft…and we are telling you the truth now, heres the evidence. The same government that left US citizens and allies in Afghaniastan to die at the hands of muslim overlords.
I bet you believe Putin blew up the Nordstream piplines also?
Man, do some of your own investigative journalism you sound like a parrot that watches CNN, ABC, MSNBC, NBC
you know pretty soon the government will start to distribute a mark on the hand or forehead, i sure hope you wake up before that starts to happen.
I don’t “choose” to believe that, it’s the truth.
Here’s your logic: “Trump is so super duper awesome and I love him so much that there’s no way more people could vote for the other guy.”
Slightly childish, no?
I see you hint at apocalypse, I presume based on the book of Revelation, which is amusing, considering its not even written in decent Greek.
“Here’s your logic: “Trump is so super duper awesome and I love him so much that there’s no way more people could vote for the other guy.”
That’s your version of logic because you hate Trump that much. And your version of logic represents what you think Maga folks think. Apparently you don’t know any Trump supporters because you live in a country that can’t vote here…thank God.
“I think the US is probably beyond saving. Basically, it’s a country where rich people get whatever they want and everybody else can f— off and die.”
Ironically the “rich” people you pretend to hate are the WEF Globalists and the coastal elitists supporters who support the democrats. So if the country is so beyond saving, (from Trump I guess), you could always do us a big favor and simply f— off and die.
“The cops were heroes, Michael Byrd foremost among them, and as I’ve said before, it’s a shame they didn’t have machine guns, preferably M60s.
Really? M60s? You always were a wimpy wannabe tough guy who wishes he could personnelly take out Trump supporters.. But then again you actually believe Ashlii Babbit is a domestic terrorist who was murdered by a cop and deserved to die.
As for my “insurrection” that you keep asking about….it will happen on Nov. 8 when we send a large number of Democrats packing and take over the House and the Senate again. That’s called a red wave.
Yes, Ashli Babbitt was a domestic terrorist who deserved to die. She was not murdered, she was executed while leading a mob that sought to tear members of Congress limb from limb.
Personally, I think the US will probably split apart in five to ten years. If the south and midwest want to give rich people whatever they want and be led by treason baboon, let them have it. I think the coasts and the other sane states will just give up and go their own way. Sad.
The WEF are openly discussing their wonderful achievement, they have infiltrated most governments in the western world.
Just like the UN they are open about their plans for a global government, they are working hand in hand.
There’s little alternative to the Tory Party,
Labour = communism
Lib Democrats = Socialism
UK Reform Party have started to grow but they are small.
Just like over here, we’re not voting our way out of this. Elections are important – especially when there are enough real voters to overcome the Dao-Min Yen cheat factor. But structurally and societally the citizenry of the west is irreconcilably divided, and the other side controls all the levers of power and influence.
There’s going to be a showdown. Or else we slip into what Churchill warned was “the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
It is now obvious that the Tories are the equivalent of our Milquetoast RINOs. They really don’t want any positive change, just more of the same failed policies.
And with the rise of the Muslims around the country how long before we call Britain a failed state.
And they will not be the only failed state in that sense. Have you checked out Canada under Turdeau?
Trudeau is absolute trash.
After the coward hid in fear of a semi-truck horn blast, he had enough of a popular & peaceful protest and the little tin horn tyrant froze their accounts, and confiscated (i.e. stole) trucks and sold the assets.
Will Liz now have to wear a truss?
The UK needs a better PM then they have right now t his one a is s loser
Oh, yes! Trump really was a devout, principled conservative: remember that massive wall he built along our southern border and made Mexico pay for it? And then the Republicans did not take a slacking in the mid-term elections!
The massive wall was being built. Construction already paid for was halted the 1st day Sleazy Joe took office.
He started to build the wall…in the face of unrelenting opposition. “And then the Republicans did not take a slacking in the mid-term elections!” … I think you meant “Shellacking”.
Bruce Bawer quite correctly stated that the late Queen Elizabeth invited Liz Truss to form a government; this was not, however, on the sovereign’s personal initiative but on the advice of her ministers.
Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – in the course of which the legitimate sovereign fled and was briskly replaced by his daughter and his Dutch son-on-law – the two Houses of Parliament and the Privy Council have the casting vote on who is fit to be the sovereign.
The sovereign reigns but does not rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom
There are several facts that Mr Bawer ought to be cognizant of.
1) The Conservative Party abandoned social or cultural conservatism decades ago, and indeed have no unifying goal or mission beyond winning elections for the sake of winning elections..
2) In the context of 2020s Britain, making tax cuts the centrepiece of a budget, and especially cutting the rate for the top 2% of earners, comes across tone-deaf and an odd sense of priorities in the face of the current cost of living crisis and unprecedented food bank use.
3) The ongoing idolisation of Margaret Thatcher by large elements of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and its paid membership is not, in my experience, shared by the wider voting public. We’ve moved on and have no time for sickly nostalgia.
4) Reversing Brexit may be the goal of some Tories, but this is hardly “globalism” versus “nationalism”. Brexit, at least the Conservative elite’s vision of Brexit, is a victory for one kind of globalism over another. Less free trade with Europe, more with Asia and Australia. Less immigration from Poland, Romania and the Baltic, more from India, Singapore and Taiwan.
5) Any change in Prime Minister mid-term, in effect, a “coup” if it results in a radical change in policy that the bulk of the voting public have had no say in.
The bookies made a fortune on Biden. Because most of the money was on Trump, about 4 to 1, until very late election night, when vote counting was suddenly stopped in all the close swing states. Then someone who must have been in the know started putting big money on Biden, enough to swing the odds way down.
Some of the bookies closed down the betting and paid off the Biden bettors the next morning, thanking their lucky stars for their big score.
Just cant take the pressure i guess just quits after a short time