Unbroken Britain? Kemi, you need to get out more
ALEXANDER MCKIBBIN
ONE CAN only ponder what earth-shattering event could garner the same saturation coverage that was generated by Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform, as Kathy Gyngell pointed out yesterday. Many, I would wager, felt the blanket reportage was wholly disproportionate, but perhaps emblematic of the febrile and fractured nature of politics in the UK.
The post-desertion accusations, the allegations of lying and dishonesty, had more in common with marital strife than front-line politics. Yet it was at Reform’s press conference where Jenrick, flanked by a smiling Farage, spoke of ‘Broken Britain’, a soundbite that harvested the assembled reporters’ attention.
Predictably and somewhat depressingly, Kemi Badenoch wasted no time in rubbishing this apparently unwarranted observation. Writing in the Telegraph, she opined: ‘Ours is still one of the most successful, resilient and influential countries on Earth,’ adding that telling voters that their ‘country is finished’ only ‘drags them down’.
As misguided observations go this surely ranks with the now legendary 1987 prediction of weatherman Michael Fish that a hurricane was not on its way hours before Britain was battered by hurricane-force winds of up to 115mph.
Warming to her La La Land theme, Badenoch continued by suggesting that Britain’s best days lie ahead,and perhaps more preposterously that the Conservatives are ‘best placed to offer solutions to the country’s problems’.
Being hosed down daily in irredeemable cant gives one a certain immunity to political claptrap, but reading Kemi’s absurd apercu gives the lie to her and other politicians’ everyday pronouncement that they understand the electorate’s frustration and they ‘get it’.
On this demonstrably ludicrous utterance, I can only suggest that she gets out a bit more. While there still lurk across the UK pockets of imbecility where people genuinely believe that politicians have their wellbeing front and centre, thankfully many more are recognising the unpalatable truth that their needs and desires are of scant importance.
It all reminds me of a Gary Larsson cartoon where a besotted owner is patting his dog’s head whilst uttering a stream of affectionate words and all the dog hears is ‘blah, blah, blah’. I am sure that each utterance from Ed, Keir or Kemi is met with the same incomprehension.
But is Britain really broken, or is it simply in need of a dab of Kemi’s magic oil to lubricate the wheels and see good old Blighty restored to being the successful, resilient and influential country she thinks it can be? Sadly, I think those days where a tweak here and there would see the UK transformed into a land of milk and honey are well behind us.
Her Nelsonian denial of what is so patently visible to one and all is further proof, not that any more is needed, that politicians of every hue are now comprehensively disconnected from reality. Their vacuous nostrums now seem positively unhinged. They cling to the belief that the repetitive incantation of some banal untruth will somehow make it a truth.
‘Broken’ would seem to be the most apposite adjective to encapsulate the malaise that afflicts almost every part of life – or parts of life that are important to one and all.
The NHS, decade after decade, heath secretary after health secretary, millions after millions and all we get are worse outcomes. Not one politician brave enough to confront the unpalatable fact that it is a system that cannot and will not deliver under its current guise.
Borders, porous and governments seemingly incapable of developing a strategy to deal with uncontrolled (as they quaintly like to put it) irregular migration.
Courts, now so backlogged that we think it acceptable to jettison jury trials.
Energy, some of the costliest in the world courtesy of our or mad net zero addiction.
Schools, now more interested in indoctrination than education.
Crime, everyday in small ways people see crime in their daily lives, phone theft, shoplifting, fare dodging and burglary now shamefully warranting merely a crime number.
Local councils, if not postponing elections, happy to squander historically high bills on vanity projects that will not benefit their residents in any way whatsoever.
Society, divided and angry.
Prisons, overcrowded and inmates mistakenly released.
Traffic, 20mph zones, calming measures, fines, bus lanes, cameras everything designed to impede mobility.
And let’s not forget the unemptied bins in Birmingham, the water cut off in Kent and Sussex, a Chief Constable even the Home Secretary cannot fire, or what about our burgeoning and totally unsustainable national debt, those still working from home, the litany of incomprehensibility and stupidity that passes for governance is mind boggling.
Maybe Kemi was really querying Jenrick’s word choice. In that case let’s have a look at a few synonyms for broken.
Damaged, defective, fragmented, busted, destroyed . . . remind you of anywhere?
This article (Unbroken Britain? Kemi, you need to get out more) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Alexander McKibbin
Leave a Reply