The bulletins from Down Under have arrived, damp and apologetic like a wet blanket at a garden party. A new centrist party, a political mousse of beige blandness, has oozed into existence in Australia. Its leaders, men and women whose faces blur into a single, benign silhouette, promise to do ‘sensible things’ at ‘appropriate times.
’ This, they insist, will ‘strengthen’ the Western alliance, a phrase that should provoke immediate evacuation of the building. The reality, my gin-soaked friends, is that this gelatinous blob of mediocrity is a geopolitical laxative. It will loosen the bowels of the ANZUS treaty, not gird the loins.
Meanwhile, across the sodden, tea-scented sceptre of our island, Britain stands firm. We, the anchor of stability, the damp rock of reason, watch with the detached wisdom of a pub philosopher. Our government, a glorious mess of fierce partisans and rabid traditionalists, provides a bastion of glorious unpredictability.
We don’t promise ‘sensible things’; we promise to abolish the monarchy or nationalise the squirrels. And that, dear reader, is what holds the West together: not the grey oatmeal of centrism, but the sharp cheddar of conviction. Our alliances are strong because we know who we are, a nation of boozy journalists, bad teeth, and magnificent arrogance.
Australia’s new party is a cautionary tale: never trust a politician who looks like a banker. They will not strengthen; they will merely beige-ify. Britain remains the last real bastion of sanity, precisely because we stopped being sensible a long time ago.
Huzzah for the glorious, drunken, stable mess of Albion.
