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Are We Doing Worse than the Shambolic UK?

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 20: Liz Truss speaks in Downing Street, with husband Hugh O'Leary, as she resigns as Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom on October 20, 2022 in London, England. Liz Truss has been the UK Pr... LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 20: Liz Truss speaks in Downing Street, with husband Hugh O'Leary, as she resigns as Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom on October 20, 2022 in London, England. Liz Truss has been the UK Prime Minister for just 44 days and has had a tumultuous time in office. Her mini-budget saw the GBP fall to its lowest-ever level against the dollar, increasing mortgage interest rates and deepening the cost-of-living crisis. She responded by sacking her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whose replacement announced a near total reversal of the previous policies. Yesterday saw the departure of Home Secretary Suella Braverman and a chaotic vote in the House of Commons chamber. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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October 21, 2022 10:45 a.m.
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I’ve been dunking wildly on the on-going implosion of the British political system. I am going to continue to do so — both because I enjoy it and because “implosion” is an accurate representation of what has happened. But there’s one uncomfortable reality I need to address. Liz Truss came into power on the votes of a minuscule slice of the population which is traditionalist but marginal to the current UK — 70k or 80k mostly older white conservative men from Southern England. She pledged to defy reality with old school British tenacity. Everything blew up in her face and now after six weeks she’s out on her ass as the shortest tenured British PM in history. (Some say in three hundred years but people before 300 years ago weren’t PMs.)

Here’s my saying “hahahaha.” But let’s be clear that this is a political system working. Yes, shambolically and after years of dysfunction. But this is a political system working and one working in ways ours seems increasingly unable to.

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