How to Fix Broken Britain
A forward-thinking manifesto to deliver change for stakeholders
This year’s Labour Party conference kicked off in the idiosyncratic style befitting its more excitable, green-haired cohort: confusion, contradiction, and faux contrition.
On Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer, our accidental prime minister, condemned Reform’s plan to deport migrants as “racist and immoral.” By Tuesday, it was Labour policy.
Politicians will say anything to keep suckling on the erect nipples of eternal power. And Labour politicians, despite their holier-than-thou affectations, are no different. They’ve seen the polls. Reform has led with room to spare in the last one hundred.
Labour has changed its spots. Starmer’s new Home Secretary, the combative and admirable Shabana Mahmood, is one foot on planet earth, at least.
At the conference, Mahmood warned the Guardian-reading element that they “won’t like the things I do.” She duly unveiled plans to ensure migrants “earn the right” to stay here: speak English, pay their way, and don’t expect their family to follow.
These once radioactive proposals are now common sense—two-thirds support immigration restrictions, whilst one-half wants not only the door welded shut but for many recent arrivals to be ushered politely through it. If Labour wants to win another election, they’d better listen to Wetherspoon Man over Performative Male.
As the week spluttered on, Starmer opted in to opting out to opting in to opting out. But Labour is listening. Nigel Farage, the Wetherspoon Man high priest, must feel his pockets lightened this week. Just glance at the swathes of Labour members waving the Union Jack, faces stretched incredulously like those masks from The Purge.
One impression emerges from this blancmange of bodily fluids: Farage has won the argument. Labour loves Britain, mate. Britain, big tits, Stella Artois, and XL Bullies.
Starmer even took it to Boris Johnson, onetime prime minister and two-time shagger of the year. The epithet ‘Boriswave’ leapt from Starmer’s tongue with pace-sticked regularity. According to the prime minister, letting in four million people in two years—the Boriswave in Twitter slang—is an affliction so terrible that to reverse it would be, erm, even worse.
To be fair, such logic is not so much witless as it is anti-sense. And anti-sense has defined the Labour Party since I was spermatozoa.
One thing is clear. The Labour party, which presides over the sputtering, worn-out appendage known as Great Britain, needs some dire advice.
Here are a few proposals, the wholesale adoption of which would solve every problem befalling broken Britain.
Votes for All
I am yet to meet one habitual voter of either Labour or the Tories who isn’t determined to burn down the two-party system. Without proportional representation, that grubby duo will dissolve into the ether.
The sole reason Labour walked the election is that Labour is not the Tories. Be a good sport and correct this false, sclerotic choice. A serious country—which we are not—has serious choices. The Europeans fare better than us. Why? They still smoke. Cigarettes demonstrably enhance short-term memory and critical thinking. A secondary reason is that their electoral systems encourage compromise and progress.
If such a perilous reality hasn’t yet dawned, consider the old Liberal Party’s inglorious seppuku in the 1920s, after a century of political dominance. Where are they now? The Liberal Democrats are the political wing of Holland & Barrett.
Immigration
Until seven minutes ago, suggesting that a limitless supply of cheap, pliable labour flowing in from the world’s poorest countries would hold down wages was verboten. For decades, British people, whose wages haven’t risen since the 2008 meltdown, were expected to believe the yuppie fiction that the law of supply and demand dissolves at Dover.
As Orwell put it, some ideas are so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.
In short, the British people have voted against mass immigration at every opportunity since I was swimming around my father’s testicles. For ordinary people, mass immigration lowers wages, spikes rents, and snaffles doctors’ appointments. Arguing against this reality is like campaigning to abolish the colour yellow.
As for stopping the boats, we could solve this overnight. Issue a pamphlet entitled Stay in France! No, seriously, it’s shit here.
Housing
I’m yet to read a piece on Britain’s housing crisis which addresses the obvious. We need to build more houses. Rents are too high. Ownership is all but impossible. Mindfulness and good vibes a home do not build. The solution: reform the planning laws to wrest control from NIMBYs with too much time on their hands.
The only solution is to reverse the process: by law, permit all planning. If someone objects to my building a two-bed flat in their Notting Hill garden, they can go through the proper legal channels. In short, build, build, and build again.
Reform the Lords
Although the very idea of unelected poshos running things excites the readership of Tatler, and is therefore repellent, the Lords do offer a mild antidote to our parliament of failed celebrities and self-seekers.
Short of abolition, let us reform by extending the franchise. Randomly select citizens from the lower orders to receive the £312 daily meal ticket. Better yet, find 350 promising artists or entrepreneurs and pay them £40,000 a year to concentrate on their craft. Britain wastes 99 percent of its talent. Why not suckle the promising on the state teat for a year or two before they leave the nest? We will once again be the cultural powerhouse of the world.
For the vain and self-absorbed, let us permit the purchase of titles. For just £3,000, Johnny Top Shelf of my local Wetherspoon pub becomes Lord Top Shelf of Wetherspoon.
Politics and Celebrity
Let us be frank: the standard of politicians in this country is that of the runts of reality TV. We must introduce measures to ensure only the highest calibre people represent the people. Anyone expert in recording a selfie video whilst gazing sociopathically into the camera should be permanently barred from office.
And anyone over 21 still on TikTok forfeits their right to vote.
Nationalise!
Privatisation achieved its goal of making unaccountable shareholders filthy rich at the expense of everyone else. The yuppie 1980s are over. It is time to nationalise trains, energy, water, mail—and West Ham United Football Club.
Alcohol, Tobacco, and the Sensual Pursuits
Vaping anything other than straight tobacco flavour should be an arrestable offence. Meanwhile, we should honour smokers as altruists, since they pay three times in taxes what they take out.
Booze taxes penalise the porous and fun-loving. All pubs should qualify for charitable status. Restore Special Brew, a punchy lager favoured by Winston Churchill, to its vandalism-happy 9% abv.
According to the Gage-Salazar Index, a functioning democracy allows at least two pints of beer for each hour worked at minimum wage.
The esteemed Germans manage four. We languish at the paltry minimum of two. Abolish alcohol taxes. Civilisation depends upon it.
Empire Redux
All eighteen-year-olds will be required to live for four years abroad in a civilised country—one where trains arrive on time, teachers teach, and garlic is not a Class B controlled substance.
Call it Empire 2.0. But rather than us going over there and pushing people about, we go over there and siphon off all the good ideas. From France, the two-hour lunch, the smoking, the embrace of extra-marital indulgence, the stylised moodiness. From Germany, the trains, the social market, the schools, the Mittelstand.
From Italy, sprezzatura, sinewy, combustive women, and indulgent social disputes. From Spain, the late dinner, the caña, the climate. From Bulgaria, a flagrant disregard for officialdom. From Scandinavia—everything.
Overnight, we would find ourselves richer, healthier, freer, thinner, and above all: affordably and consistently pissed.
A Better Britain
Finally, we must support the burgeoning influencer industry—the only industry we have left. How about sequestering all aspirant influencers on an island off the coast, mocked up to look like Love Island? There they can hone their skills before we export them across the globe. Meanwhile, we can become world-leaders in vacuity, waxed chests, and blindingly bright teeth. The island will have a runway, of course. And they may leave at any time—but the plane only goes to Dubai.
Or you could save yourself a lot of bother: change the party name from ‘Labour’ to the Social Democratic Party, adopt the SDP’s faultless manifesto wholesale, replace Keir Starmer with William Clouston, and swap every Labour member for an SDP member.
There you are: problem solved.
Almost anything is better than Labour.....(as an asthmatic I draw the line at smoking 🤣). Thankfully for Stsrmer that other great British institution, The Weather, is currently taking the heat off his many failings.
Priceless - even more appealing than the various manifestos of Roderick Spode, Leader of the Black Shorts. You have my vote.