Today the British PM, Rishi Sunak, called a general election for the 4th of July. He spoke of the challenging times and of strong leadership and achievements. It was as if he was talking about someone else, a real leader, rather than he himself or the woeful list of Tory leaders who have preceded him.
During the announcement someone started playing a song, the lyrics “things can only get better” echoing around Downing Street. Sunak ignored it, as he did the rain pooling on his shoulders. This is not a man who takes notice of things he doesn’t like.
He soon moved from his track record, the guy isn’t a complete idiot, to bad mouthing the opposition - because that’s what this election will be all about. Ignore what we’ve done to hurt you, but fear them.
It’s been such a long time, 14 years the Tories have been in charge. Children completing their schooling will have only ever known Tory rule. The days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown seem so long ago.
I love much about the UK. The cultural output of those islands, books, music, television, so many things, is unparalleled. Many of us feel links to the place whether we migrated from there ourselves or have ancestors that did generations ago.
For young Kiwis it’s a wonderful opportunity to travel, to experience living in a different country that isn’t so different. But it can also be bloody expensive. Until you start earning pounds it’s horrifying how quickly your kiwi dollars disappear. The amount you pay to live somewhere you wouldn’t look twice at back home, horrendous.
I’ve hated seeing what the Tories have done to the people of those islands with austerity, and Brexit. They’ve basically been the poster child, the neoliberal laboratory, to show others what not to do.
About a year after we first met Fi and I headed off to London. It was 1997, the same year Tony Blair came to power, ending almost 20 years of Thatcher and Major.
It was all Cool Britannia then, the new Prime Minister hanging out with the Brit Pop stars of the day. An enormous relief after so long.
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The following year the Good Friday agreement came, on this very day in 1998 it was endorsed in a referendum by 75% of the people in Northern Ireland. There was such a wave of optimism at the time, although some were cynical that peace could ever be achieved. By and large it has stood for more than a quarter of a century, after decades of murder and conflict.
Back in that year of 1997, once we’d done some travelling, we settled into Shepherd’s Bush. At that time it was popular and affordable to young antipodeans who had been priced out of Earl’s Court. Before the prices in W12 forced them out further to the likes of Acton.
It was pretty grotty. We had a two bedroom flat on the 2nd of 19 floors in a tower block behind a petrol station, which we shared with a South African overstayer. The windows wouldn’t close so the heat from the radiators directly below them was wasted, meaning many visits to the Post Office to get electricity credit on a card - something I wasn’t used to in New Zealand.
We both started earning reasonable money and spent most of our time out of the flat, travelling, seeing London, or at the pub. I recall at the time thinking how grotty our living conditions were, the lift smelled of piss and the flat wasn’t a pleasant place to be, just somewhere to sleep. I wondered how on earth locals raising families on much lower incomes managed.
Eventually we got sick of playing dodge the vomit on our way home from the Firkin, or the Springbok, and moved up market - Belsize Park. A beautiful leafy suburb with expensive shops and housing about halfway between Camden and Hampstead, both an easy walk on a Saturday morning. We paid fifty percent more than we had been for a studio, a single room with a fold down couch and a separate bathroom.
I really liked living there. My commute was a nice walk through the sort of suburbs you see in British rom coms to the hustle and bustle of Finchley Rd where I caught a bus out to Hertfordshire, Hemel Hempstead. We drank at the Washington in England’s Lane, had a favourite Italian restaurant we went to often, and I could walk up to the high street to perhaps the best travel book shop in London. Life was good.
We left for about five months to travel around South America and return to NZ to see family. When we got back the job in Hemel was waiting but there was no room in the inn in Belsize. The South African chap running the place let us sleep in a vacant apartment for a couple of nights, then we moved to Finchley Rd which was great for travel, two tube lines and a bus straight to work but it was certainly no Belsize Park.
We took up residence, at least during our waking hours, at the North Star pub. Getting to know the landlady and the young, South African couple running the place so well she offered us jobs and they used to come to dinner on their nights off.
Eventually my visa ran out and so it was time to return to normal life back in Aotearoa. Our good friends Tracey and Francois, South Africans of course, saw us off at Heathrow. We didn’t imagine we’d be back.
We lasted 18 months back in New Zealand. Got married, got a large mortgage, but I couldn’t settle. It was culture shock after being in London, everything seemed so slow and travel and other things so hard geographically and on the kiwi dollar.
Travel had become my great passion, I seriously thought about trying to write travel books at one point, like so many others who love travel and dream of being paid to do so. Earning pounds we could travel often, from NZ, anywhere other than Australia or the Islands was a long haul and there was also the matter of taking a career seriously.
So we headed back to London for another couple of years in 2001, sleeping in Tracey and Francois’ lounge at first. But things were harder this time, the market had slumped, especially the IT sector I worked in on the back of the Dotcom crash.
We also needed space for Alex and Emma, who would be living with their mum in Surrey. So we went further out, up the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines from Finchley Rd to Wembley Park where we could afford a small three bedroom flat.
I found a job in St John’s Wood, if you’ve ever been to Lords chances are you’ve been through that tube station. It was a lovely place, quite similar to Belsize Park. Horrendously expensive but full of fabulous delis, cafes, and celebrities to spot.
Wembley on the other hand is pretty down at heel. Often in our local Lidl (a budget European supermarket chain) it seemed like I was the only one in the place that spoke english, as I looked at the unfamiliar central european products and brands I’d never heard of. It was very basic, but it was also incredibly cheap. I’d stand behind women with jet black skin, shy and mysterious, with bulk bags of flour and cooking oil as I placed my german lagers and sausages on the conveyor.
Wembley Central itself was like being somewhere on the subcontinent. We drank often at the Parish, an Irish bar a short stumble from home mostly frequented by rail workers down from the north and retired taxi drivers with tall tales and appalling views. It was an intoxicating mix.
Towards the end of our time there I remember receiving a bill for Council Tax, what we call rates - except there it’s paid by tenants not landlords. It was more than most people would earn in a month. I recall thinking how glad I was to be leaving, the cost was completely unaffordable.
Yet now we see rates approaching similar levels here. The bills keep going up and up although conversely there doesn’t seem to be much improvement in the services.
Blair and Brown carried on for a few years, but that Cool Britannia feeling of the mid-late 90s was long gone. Many now thought of Blair as a war criminal, having taken Britain into Iraq based on complete lies.
The Tories swept away New Labour in 2010 and since then they’ve had one diabolical leader after another. Doing more and more damage to their country, harming their own citizens, and making many wonder how on earth they keep getting elected.
First there was David Cameron, he of the pig’s head, and a response to the GFC of harsh austerity. Really horrible inhuman stuff. I strongly disliked Key and English but I was grateful that they didn’t choose to go down the path of austerity as many other countries did at the time. Although it makes it all the more awful to see such austerity being unleashed by the Luxon/Willis government today.
Cameron of course delivered Brexit, meeting an election commitment to hold a referendum he never expected to lose. He departed in disgrace after the appalling decision of many based on fear, ignorance, and outright lies, to depart from the EU.
Next up was the even less inspiring Theresa May who continued with more of the same although she looked less cocky about it than Cameron. Ultimately she was weak, an easy take down for someone far more ambitious, and she shuffled off.
Boris Johnson was next, becoming Prime Minister six months before Covid arrived. His gross ineptitude and unwillingness to take measures that would impact businesses, providing watered down and confusing safety messages and guidelines, resulted in tens of thousands in the UK dying. Most of who would not have died if the country had had a better leader. Like a certain place 12,000 miles away.
In the end the lies caught up with Boris, the parties during Covid restrictions, all matter of dishonesty and buffoonery. The country cried enough and the Conservative Party said, oh alright then - you can have Liz Truss.
As we all know Liz didn’t last as long as a lettuce, and unfortunately had about the same level of economic prowess as one. So the UK was delivered once more by the Tory Party who said OK then, you can have Rishi.
So now they have Rishi Sunak, a man literally richer than the king. One whose idea of British decency is giving the desperate migrants who arrive on their shores a one way ticket to Rwanda.
As you’ll see in this montage from Russell Howard the UK public have not been entirely thrilled:
With the last election having been in 2019 Mr Sunak today called a general election for the 4th of July.
Finally, after 14 years, there is a strong likelihood that the British public will tire of the misery caused by the Tories. Things are looking good, as shown in this poll tracker from The Independent.
But while things are looking good let’s not underestimate the level of big money and misinformation that will be applied before then to encourage voters to ignore the facts and return the Tories out of fear.
It’s a long electoral cycle in the UK, five years. We’ve had two elections since Covid emerged. The Labour landslide of 2020, undoubtedly propelled by our world leading Covid response. Then the lurch to the right in 2023 as many decided they weren’t very happy that the government spent so much money saving their lives and jobs after all. The UK have not had a General Election in all that time.
One potential hurdle is that the UK is still running a First Past the Post system, rather than a more democratic proportional system. In their most recent election in 2019 the Tories won comfortably despite the fact that they only received 43.6% of the vote. At the same time Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, and the Greens got 50.3% between them. Under an MMP system those parties could’ve formed a government.
As the election unfolds I’ll probably write a bit more, although rest assured I’ll still be mostly writing about Aotearoa.
I know some of you grew up in the UK, how are you feeling about the news today and a possible end to 14 years of heartbreakingly cruel leadership from these bastards?
Keir Starmer is an underwhelming leader but by god he’ll be better than Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, or Sunak. I dearly hope there’ll be a change for the UK.
Do you remember the song someone was playing over Rishi Sunak’s announcement at the start? It was used for a Labour Party Political Broadcast right back in 1997 - that’s why I love the Poms, what a brilliant selection to play over Sunak’s announcement.
It’s hard to overstate just how happy people were to see the back of the Tories in 97, but they’ll be just as happy getting rid of them this July.
Things can only get better!
Rishi lives in a parallel universe. Britain has been run into the ground by the Tories and our National led coalition seems hell bent on doing the same here. It seems there’s nowhere on this planet that has a government that cares about their people, only profit and wealth for the few. What sort of life are today’s five year olds going to dealing with when they reach adulthood?
I find it interesting that Topham Guerin did both the Brexit campaign and the latest Nats election campaign... very easy to see the similarities.