In a scene that could only be described as a fever dream of hygge and horticultural triumph, Japanese football fans have once again demonstrated their uncanny ability to turn a World Cup stadium into a shining temple of cleanliness. They swept. They scrubbed. They probably rearranged the dust motes into tiny origami cranes. And now, across the soggy, unwashed isles of Great Britain, a new feminist rallying cry has emerged: ‘If they can do it for a football match, why can’t we demand a government that doesn’t leave the kitchen floor sticky?’
Yes, my dear reader, a coalition of British women, armed with sponges and righteous indignation, have gathered under the banner of ‘Sovereign Sparkle’ to demand that the same standards of meticulous cleanliness applied to a temporary arena be applied to the entire infrastructure of a crumbling empire. Their manifesto, scrawled on the back of a Wetherspoons napkin, calls for Boris Johnson to personally mop the M25 and for Liz Truss to vacuum the House of Lords. It is, without doubt, the most reasonable political demand I have heard in a decade.
The Japanese fans, of course, are simply being themselves. They have elevated tidying up to a national sport, a sort of extreme asceticism where the ultimate victory is a bin bag neatly tied. While the rest of us get hyped on cheap lager and chants about ‘It’s coming home’, they are wiping down urinals with the reverence of a Shinto priest. It is beautiful, it is humbling, and it makes our own country look like a skip fire in a wet Primark.
But the feminist angle is where the real genius lies. These women are not protesting unequal pay or reproductive rights. They are protesting the filth. They argue that a nation that cannot keep its public toilets in working order has no right to lecture anyone on moral hygiene. And they have a point. If the men who run this country spent half as much time cleaning up after themselves as they do posturing in front of microphones, we might not have a bin strike every other Tuesday.
Of course, the patriarchy has responded with its usual eloquence. A spokesman for the prime minister, looking like a man who has just discovered a ketchup stain on his tie, declared that ‘cleanliness is a personal responsibility, not a state mandate.’ Which is rich coming from a government that has privatised water, outsourced street sweeping, and allowed the River Thames to become a giant, flowing colostomy bag.
But the rally continues. Women in gilets and sensible shoes are marching on Downing Street, carrying mops instead of placards. They are chanting: ‘What do we want? A spotless nation! When do we want it? After the match!’ It is a surreal, beautiful, and utterly British moment. And I, for one, am hiding my gin bottle behind the dusters. Because if they can make Japan shine, they can make us all shine. Or at least make the grime a bit more evenly distributed.