Only happy when it rains

It takes more effort to frown that it does to smile, you know! Not for this mob it doesn't.

There’s been a weird atmosphere in British politics recently. Something that most normal Brits haven’t felt for over a decade. A strange, nebulous sensation that is probably wholly unfamiliar to anybody under the age of 40. It’s not rampaging, but it’s definitely fliting around the edges. I think I remember it from my halcyon days in the 1990s.

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

It’s hope.

Yes, Andy Burnham’s bizarre decision to throw people a few tangible benefits seems to be vibing with the majority. It’s early days, and the UK has been fucked into the ground by nearly two decades of mismanagement so we have a long way to go, but it appears that tweaking a few little things to - gasp! - make life better for the unwashed masses is actually quite popular. Chuck in a little Oasis nod and an awks chat about pub snacks, and all of a sudden you’re more popular than an ice cream man in a never ending heatwave.

Burnham’s copped some flack for showing a little bit of himself; drawing easy and, frankly, rather snide comparisons to David Brent from The Office. I don’t mind a political stunt if its accompanied by observable action and, radical I know, showing a little of the human behind the suit.

This politics lark is a doddle, isn’t it?

Of course, we’ve got a entire ecosystem of professional opinion havers out there, all of them coining it in off the status quo for ages now. And we can’t have nice things, kids, because that would mean they can’t afford that hot tub they’ve been working towards. The media machine is already gearing up to try and chip away at the new PM, and no amount of Smiths’ lyrics will save him from that.

For now, though, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. Like the doldrums, where trade winds falter and ships drift aimlessly for days. This weird little lull has got some of Andy B’s opponents in a bit of a tizzy.

This piece came into my head because of a man called Chris Philp. If you’re one of my beloved overseas Ledgeheads you’ll have no idea who Chris Philp is, and to be fair there’s probably a few here in Blighty who don’t have a scooby¹ either. So let me paint a picture.

Picture that kid at school who was so insignificant, so pointlessly beige, that they didn’t even get bullied. They never got off with someone behind the bike sheds, they never had a fight on the football pitch. In fact, they never did a single thing of note in the entire time you knew them.

Now picture that kid breezing through grammar school and Oxford university, before landing a career in management consultancy. Of course they’d grow up to be an utterly hapless Conservative MP.

Chris Philp achieved low level notoriety a couple of years ago when, on Question Time, he confused Rwanda with the Democratic Republic of Congo, having to clarify that they were, in fact, two completely different countries. Clearly his expensive education didn’t cover geography.

He also has one of the most obvious tells of any politician in the world: when he’s under even the slightest bit of pressure, he gulps like a fish out of water. Because he’s never experienced any adversity in his life, this happens every time a microphone appears in front of him.

Maybe I’m being unfair, because Chris Philp actually has experienced adversity. Just last week, France declared war on him. All he did, right, was go on a jolly to France, and those hateful cheese munchers took shots at him! The diabolical liberty!

No, sorry - I can’t spin it out anymore. I’m a good story teller, but even I can’t make Chris Philp interesting.

In fact, Chris Philp decided to do a cheap Nigel Farage tribute act - skipping off to France to shove a microphone in the faces of the desperate folk who take their lives in their hands by crossing the English Channel in a shit dinghy. Imagine fleeing war and persecution only to end up with some ineffectual fud in a stripy pink polo shirt in your face right at the end. I think I’d turn around and take my chances with a bullet.

As part of his cheap trick, Chris Philp got on a boat and bobbed about in the channel like a stupid boring cork, opining dolefully about the state of affairs. Several hundred metres away, a French vessel was engaged in a training exercise. An officer fired seventeen shots from the bow of the French ship, in the opposite direction to HMS Boring, and just like that Chris Philp had the most exciting thing that had happened to him. The entire nation of France had declared war upon him.

Right then, France - it’s on! Credit: Politics Joe

What drew me to this ludicrous little man and the tale of what he did on his Summer Holidays (by Chris Philp, aged 50 1/4) was just how po-faced he was while touring the studios, trying to muster up some outrage. The man was dourness personified. Mate, you want to convince us you were attacked on the high seas - shuzh² it up a bit!

Nope, not at all. He just sat there like plain boiled rice, droning on about how he would be speaking to France about this. Even that portentous threat sounded like a man complaining about a missed bin delivery. Imagine attending a surgery in his constituency, it’d be like roll call with Ferris Bueller’s teacher.

I’m almost positive that Chris Philp hasn’t smiled since the turn of the millennium. All he does is embody wretchedness. He is a walking, talking frown.

He’s not the only one, either. The Reform top table, so long positioned as a rock n’ roll breath of fresh air in British politics, aren’t having a good time of it at all. Uncle Nige’s dodgy gifts (what’s £5m between pals, right kids?) have rattled the lot of them, so much so that the mask of bonhomie has slipped. And what’s that underneath? A bunch of po-faced grumps. Unfettered misery.

Obviously, the itchy sweater of scrutiny is acutely uncomfortable for them. The filthy rich should be able to do whatever they want, accountability is for the masses. What’s fascinating is just how dour they all are about it.

Farage’s man of the people schtick has been tossed aside like Ed Norton’s choirboy act in Primal Fear³; Zia Yusuf seems to actively want to fight every journalist he speaks to (not that the soft-handed millionaire fixer has ever been in a proper fight); little Bobby Jenrick, human drizzle in Windsor knot, looks like someone’s pissed in his Coco Pops; Lee Anderson, another professional sneerer, wanders around the north in a fleece, Zoom calling Good Morning Britain for a shoeing off Richard fucking Madely. Best of all is Richard Tice, BFFs with aristocrats, £40m in his sky rocket⁴, and still reduced to picking fights with Auntie Beeb because they found some people in his constituency who like him.

Part of this is Reform’s inherent desire to position themselves as outsiders, but they have noticeably become more joyless and miserable of late; the matey lark discarded, their frown muscles getting a proper HIIT workout.

Someone out there reading this right now is calling me a leftie liberal. Or woke, or part of the established elite, or whatever-the-fuck the insult of the day is that allows you not to think too hard. You’re wrong, my faceless friend. This is not a left/right thing. Jeremy Corbyn utterly failed in his mission to turn the UK into one big allotment precisely because he took himself far too seriously, while Gordon Brown qualifies as the most desolate Prime Minister in my entire lifetime.

I get that politicians need to present themselves as serious people; they want to run the country, not a burger van. I am also still entirely wedded to my oft-repeated mantra that politics is categorically not entertainment. We should not hold these people up as celebrities - they’re public servants and little more.

We need a little joy though, we crave optimism and positivity. Why do you think Boris Johnson was so popular? For all of his faults (and I could write volumes on that man’s faults) he offered hope. It had all the substance of a hessian sack full of custard, but people lapped it up. Even as a generational pandemic tore through the population, Johnson never came across as miserable. Largely because of rampant ego and entitlement, but you get the point.

An absolute berk, but not a miserable one. Credit: Guardian.

This is what makes Farage’s generational head loss so hilarious. He was the anointed successor to Johnson. The Chosen One of populism, the showboating showman, handpicked to inexorably clean up. But he can’t do it, he can’t project the promise that we all so desperately crave. Like Chris Philp and Gordon Brown, his default setting is unhappiness. And I’m not sure unhappy people can cope with the political spotlight for very long.

Rumbled as a billionaire’s lapdog, he joylessly dug in and it failed spectacularly. Normal people just don’t buy that shit. He should’ve done a little TikTok where he danced about his gifted flat to ‘If I Was a Rich Man’, or gone down to Lucky Voice karaoke for a quick burst of ‘Money Money Money’ by Abba.

See, Nige, you don’t need convicted fraudster Posh George for this stuff - good old Lewis Holmes is right here. Half the price and nowhere near as posh. An actual man of the people, in fact. Too late now. The die is cast and your tetchy, murky, gloomy summer of 2026 will stick long in the national psyche. I definitely think I could help the terminally cheerless, though.

Stoner metal outfit Monster Magnet have precisely two good songs: ‘Space Lord’ and ‘Negasonic Teenage Warhead’. The latter was written by frontman Dave Wyndorf in response to rock stars who always seem to project misery, clearly hating the career path they chose for themselves⁵. I have appropriated it for politicians; it pops into my head every time I see one of these haunted Toby jug dopes trying to bring everyone else down.

I want to climb through the screen like a fat, bald Sadako in reverse, crawling towards that terrified misery guts. I’d grab them by the lapels of their sensible suit, and shake them till their teeth rattled. Then I’d tap the back of their head up against the nearest wall, move in so close I could kiss them, and launch into my invective at point blank range. “You’re in a position of immense power,” I would whisper. “You can change lives. You are paid fortunes. You don’t even need to be on my side, but at least try and look like you don’t hate every single one of us.”

Then I’d do something cute, like patting them lightly on the cheek, or ruffling their hair. Fuck it, maybe I’d actually give them a little kiss - you don’t truly know yourself until you’ve been in a tense situation that’s been resolved with a little surprise flirting. Who know, it might even make them lighten up a little bit.

Now let’s see Andy Burnham work all of that into a TikTok, then throw in Monster Magnet for good measure.

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1. Scooby doo = clue

2. Go on then, smart arse - you spell it.

3. Shut up about spoilers, it’s a thirty year old film.

4. Sky rocket = pocket.

5. It is not named after the Marvel superhero of the same name. Rather, her creator loved the song so much that she was given the same name.