Hilarious, though tragic

It is familiar sight to see: a Prime Minister, cut adrift and alone, abandoned by their own bedfellows, and standing on the Downing Street steps.

One month and fifteen days. That is how long the alleged conservative Liz Truss lasted as Prime Minister. To give credit where it is due, she has absolutely decimated the previous record, set by George Canning, for the shortest premiership on record.

It is familiar sight to see: a Prime Minister, cut adrift and alone, abandoned by their own bedfellows, and standing on the Downing Street steps. It is how the last four Conservative Prime Ministers have gone.

We can laugh and crack jokes at the hilarity, bizarreness, and all-round mess that has taken place in Westminster. However, the mirth seems to stop as soon as one realises that this institution - corrupt beyond repair and incompetent beyond comprehension - holds the keys to our shared fate as a nation. This is the institution that sets taxes, the perimeters for immigration, and more widely our cultural, foreign, and economic policies. This is the institution that has been trusted by the British people to deliver, and it has failed catastrophically.

I recall when Boris Johnson took this very same, final step. And while I was glad to see the Conservative Party - which has failed on every good metric - falter and teeter, I knew then that the devil one knows is better than the devil one doesn't. At least Johnson had a flicker of care about the border, even if the Rwanda plan was just a red-meat publicity stunt. In stark opposition, Truss' proposed solutions for a nation in cultural, demographic, and economic crisis, was to ease the already non-existent border controls.

In the wake of Elizabeth II's passing, there was much dialogue on the future of the British monarchy. However, one notable absence from said discussions was that which concerns the expansion of the Royal remit. One may scoff at this proposition, and to those who do, I have one question: would you rather have the next in a line of treacherous charlatans, or a man raised from birth in the art of statecraft? Of course, this line of argument also applies to the old hereditary peers. Were we not goverened better when democracy had stricter limits?

One may look back at the time before the democratisation of British politics, and cheer the fact that the wider population now has a more direct say. However, as far as competent administration goes, with the good fortune of the British people at its centre, the baby has very much been thrown out with the bath water.