It was a scene of operatic absurdity in the Belgian capital yesterday, as riot police turned the cobblestones of Brussels into a ballet of batons and bruised ribs all while Emmanuel Macron stood at a podium, veins bulging, demanding silence like a headmaster with a hangover. The French president, a man whose ego is only outmatched by his capacity for self-regard, apparently mistook the European Parliament for his own personal green room.
Let us paint the picture: a protester, possibly a local, possibly a sentient baguette (who can tell these days), raises a placard of dissent. The placard, no doubt a work of art, is met with a wall of visored faces and the dull thud of authority. Macron, perhaps sensing his moment, steps up to the microphone and bellows for quiet. The irony, you see, is that he was already in charge. But power, like cheap gin, makes the mind go fuzzy.
Now, across the Channel, Whitehall watches this pantomime with a smug smile and a cup of tepid tea. Spokespeople for His Majesty's Government, possibly the same blokes who told us Brexit would be a picnic, praised the 'orderly governance' of the United Kingdom. Yes, orderly. Because nothing screams order like a prime minister who's been in office for roughly the shelf life of a pint of milk.
The contrast is delicious, a fine cheese of hypocrisy. British police, we are told, handle protests with a gentle hand and a soothing folk song. But ask the shadow of a murdered black woman or the echoes of the Poll Tax riots. Orderly governance, it seems, means the quiet violence of bureaucracy and the occasional baton charge.
Meanwhile, Macron's performance is a masterclass in existential panic. The man is a centrist with the soul of a Napoleon, no, a Trump, no, a fifth-form drama teacher. He screams for silence because that's the only sound left when your approval ratings have gone for a baguette. Europe watches, half-amused, half-horrified, as the continent's oldest democracies slide into a farce that would make Molière blush.
But let's not be churlish. The real story here isn't the police, the protester, or even Macron's microphonic meltdown. It's the theatre of it all. Politics has become a series of set pieces designed for the cameras, a reality show with higher stakes and better hair. The protester, the riot gear, the screaming president: these are props in a drama we are all forced to watch.
At the airport bar, I observed this whole sordid affair on the telly, nursing a gin that tasted of regret and aviation fuel. The bartender, a man who has seen the rise and fall of empires and the decline of cocktail olives, shrugged. 'They're all the same,' he said. And he's right. From London to Brussels to Paris, it's the same game of thrones played by people who wouldn't survive a single episode of 'The Thick of It'.
So, as white smoke rises from Downing Street (probably from the central heating budget), we salute the orderly governance of Great Britain. It is, after all, a masterpiece of repression dressed in tweed. And as Macron continues his screamathon, one hopes the riot police at least get overtime and a decent sandwich. Because in this circus, the only real victims are the clowns who still believe in change.
