COMING MONDAY- You asked for it…you got it. TALK TO ME GOOSE
Friday saw an extraordinary and yet orderly change of power in the world’s oldest democracy. In England, Labour made a strong comeback after fourteen years of being the opposition. Once the results were in, PM Rishi Sunak was out, and Kier Starmer was in. No storming Parliament. No protests. No accusations of dead Venezuelan dictators fixing voting machines. No frivolous lawsuits. No former mayors with dye running down their face holding ridiculous press conferences making outrageous lies (remember his formation of an “elite strike force” of lawyers to challenge the election? They lost every case, were not elite, and made our country a joke to the world).
In a carefully orchestrated process that is hundreds of years old, Sunak went to the Palace Friday and told King Charles III he was resigning. The King accepted his resignation. Shortly thereafter (and in the past it has sometimes been less than ten minutes) the new leader -Starmer- arrived- and in a ceremony known as the “Kissing of the Hands” (although no hands are kissed) the King greets his new PM and asks him to form a government. The new PM agreed, and then they chatted for a few minutes and arranged a time for their weekly luncheon. During that interregnum (you Desantis drones can Google that word) the King is the sole leader of Britian.
Meanwhile the departing PM returned one last time to number 10 Downing where he was briskly moved out of his home within a day of losing the election. He made a departing speech and left. The new PM then showed up with his family and was greeted by the permanent staff with polite applause. And a new government leads England.
We may be proud of our democracy and american exceptionalism blah blah blah but exceptionalism is earned every day and we have not been exceptional for some time now. But England, dear England, always has been exceptional, especially in the worst of times. And now more than ever, the world needs the stability of England as we stare into the precipice of potential destruction of our country- rent by a dumb megalomaniac.
Which reminds us of when Benjamin Franklin was questioned by a socialite shortly after declaring independence. “So what do we have now?” she asked him. “A monarchy or a republic?”
“A republic if you can keep it” Franklin replied.
Indeed.