RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: At least our PM isn't completely gaga

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: It’s easy to despair of British politics, but at least our PM isn’t completely gaga and his main rival isn’t up the steps at the Old Bailey

There was something ridiculously Ruritanian about this week’s State Opening of Parliament.

Charles visibly uncomfortable in his wonky Lewis Carroll crown and Carmela in her comedy frock, embroidered with images of her favourite dogs and grandchildren, like a doily from the top table at a Victorian wedding breakfast.

The full absurdity was captured brilliantly by Quentin Letts in his Mail sketch the following day.

While the Windsors were gussied up like Henry VIII and The Queen of Tarts, the leaders of our two once-great political parties greased their way into the Upper House in civvies — Dishy Rishi wearing his half-mast Norman Wisdom designer whistle and ‘Sir’ Keir sporting his gelled Max Headroom quiff, which went out of fashion when Kajagoogoo were all the rage.

Sunak and Starmer chuckled away in mock conspiratorial mood, a matched pair of provincial lawyers carving up a settlement in a particularly tricky conveyancing dispute over whether the kitchen units can be apportioned against stamp duty, Mandelson-style.

Outside, the dogs on Main Street howled their support for the Hamas butchers. And, for a moment, I thought to myself: Thank heaven I’m watching this madness from a safe distance.

I’ve been in the U.S. over the past couple of weeks keeping a weather eye on the latest developments in the race for the White House, ahead of Wednesday night’s Republican Party candidates’ debate in Miami.

There was something ridiculously Ruritanian about this week’s State Opening of Parliament. Charles visibly uncomfortable in his wonky Lewis Carroll crown and Carmela in her comedy frock

Biden was lavishly praised for his resolute address in support of Ukraine and Israel. But how much he knew about it is debatable. Pictured: Biden falling over in June

This week Hillary turned up on The View — America’s model for ITV’s Here We Go Looby Loose Women — to accuse Donald Trump of being Hitler, literally

As Boris reinforced in this paper recently, I’ve always thought that America is the world’s last best hope, a robust democracy with the will and the arsenal to promote and protect freedom across the globe.

There are times, I must admit, when I have a degree of sympathy with actress Emma Thompson’s disdain for the Old Country, as a ‘tiny, cake-filled, misery-laden island’ — even though I despise to the very fibre of my being almost everything this pretentious, hypocritical, entitled, expat luvvie and her celebrity Leftie friends represent.

The U.S. electoral system struck me as superior to our own stuck-in-the-past constitutional monarchy. These days, in Britain — and despite Brexit, as they say on the BBC — we seem to be at the mercy of an unelected tyranny, from pompous, EU-worshipping Supreme Court judges and Common Purpose-brainwashed cops to unaccountable WFH civil servants and the self-appointed commissars of the HR and diversity stasi.

This week’s King’s Speech could have been written by either party. Sunak v Starmer, is that as good as it gets? The bland versus the bland.

My admittedly cynical take on British politics is that of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band: No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. On the other side of the pond, taxpayers get to vote for everyone from police chiefs to the local dog catcher. That’s what I call a proper democracy.

And yet, something is rotten in the United States of America right now, one short year before voters go to the polls to elect their next President.

As I wrote here after the first Republican presidential debate back in August, the U.S. is currently facing the depressing prospect of having to choose between an 81-year-old basket case or a 78-year-old sociopath, who by then could be behind bars. Joe Biden is a dribbling wreck on life support, who takes more tumbles than a glass-jawed welterweight and can only be allowed out in public on a leash.

I’ve lost count of the number of times he literally hasn’t known which way to turn to leave the stage without falling over after stammering through another speech spelled out for him in 72 point on autocue.

His minders limit his public appearances to the absolute minimum. His wife props him up like one of those scantily-clad nurses attending Young Mr Grace in Are You Being Served?

You’ve all done very well.

Biden was lavishly praised for his resolute address in support of Ukraine and Israel. But how much he knew about it is debatable.

At least the PM isn’t completely gaga, slumped in the No 10 basement wearing incontinence pants, and his main challenger isn’t up the steps at the Old Bailey

The buck doesn’t stop with Biden, it’s whacked around the rink by an assortment of increasingly deranged Left-wingers, hell-bent on dismantling the southern border and imposing a woke agenda on an unwilling electorate.

Think the UK has a problem with tens of thousands of cross-Channel migrants? Then consider this. Since Biden became President, more than six million illegals have crossed into America from goodness knows where.

Never mind the cartels sending drugs shipments north, security experts are convinced it’s only a matter of time before there’s another 9/11-style atrocity committed by Islamist extremists, who will have entered the U.S. via Mexico while pretending to be ‘asylum seekers’.

Fortunately, when it comes to Israel and Ukraine, the titans of the despised military/industrial complex appear to be in charge of policy. So at least we’re in with a chance.

Meanwhile, as World War III kicks off, Biden sits in his basement, wearing his dressing-up box Commander In Chief outfit and watching it all unfold on the TV, punching buttons on the remote like Chauncey Gardner in the classic Peter Sellers film Being There.

Biden’s also facing corruption allegations, detailed here in the summer. This week his brother James and his degenerate son Hunter were subpoenaed by Congress to answer charges that they funnelled millions of dollars in foreign bribes to ‘The Big Guy’ — ie: Joe, when he was Obama’s vice president.

My best guess is he won’t be the Democratic candidate next November, whether he wants it or not. Which brings us to what comes next. Some are already floating Michelle Obama. Others still think that gracious loser Hillary Clinton is in with a shout.

This week Hillary turned up on The View — America’s model for ITV’s Here We Go Looby Loose Women — to accuse Donald Trump of being Hitler, literally.

At which stage all rational argument goes straight out of the window.

Smarmy California governor Gavin Newsom — formerly married to a TV presenter with the kind of dental work which makes her look as if she’s been to bed with a coathanger in her mouth, think Carly Simon — was in China last week sucking up to President Xi Jinping.

Trump appears unstoppable, at least for the nomination. Polls in battleground states put him ahead of Biden, which is why even solid Democratic commentators are desperate to stop Biden running again

Newsom clearly sees himself as the next occupant of the Oval Office, despite turning his Golden State into the kind of bankrupt tent city that Sue Ellen Braverman is determined to prevent in Britain.

Californian and Left-wing Washington State and Oregon city centres are as much of a basket case as Biden himself, riddled with crime, homelessness and with businesses getting out of Dodge double-quick. Only this week, billionaire Amazon boss Jeff Bezos announced he was moving from Democrat Seattle to Miami to be ‘nearer his family’.

Right, Jeff, nothing to do with no state income tax and a relatively low crime rate, courtesy of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, eh?

Regular readers know that I’m a DeSantis fan, based on his economic record, his resistance to Covid lockdown and his anti-woke agenda. In any sane world, the next presidential election would be between De Santis and a Dem like Newsom. Small state, low tax versus big state, high tax.

But America is no longer a sane world, at least politically. Before this week’s Republican debate, the main topic of discussion was whether DeSantis wore cowboy boots to make him appear taller than his not-exactly-short 5ft 11in. (As if that’s got anything to do with the price of pork bellies, which have pushed up the price of a bacon-and-egg McBanjo from around five dollars to $7.50 — six quid for cash. That’s what the Americans call a cost-of-living crisis.)

When the debate actually got under way in Miami, the argument over shoes got even more absurd. Vivek Ramaswamy, a cocky self-made, self-publicist accused former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley — the only woman in the race — of being ‘Dick Cheney [George W. Bush’s gung-ho deputy] in 3in heels.’

‘I wear 5in heels’, she barked back, later calling Ramaswamy ‘scum’. Which tells you all you need to know about the level of debate.

During the adverts, I flicked cable channels and stumbled across the Country Music Awards, which attracted almost as large an audience as the Republican debate on NBC.

The big winner was someone called Jelly Roll, who weighs about 35st and has a tattooed face. He looks like the supersized Russian Doll of the British pop star Rag’n’Bone Man.

Curiously enough, he probably stands as much chance of becoming the next President as any of the Republican candidates on stage in Miami.

Stranger things have happened. During local elections this week, a 40-year-old woman who makes a living auctioning live sex acts with her husband on the internet narrowly missed being elected to Virginia’s House of Representatives.

Meanwhile in Georgia, they’re bringing racketeering charges against Trump, under the same statutes used against Al Capone

Nice work if you can get it. I wonder if she wears 5in heels, too. Sounds like Donald Trump’s kinda gal, doesn’t she? And now we get to the Nelly The Elephant in the room — Trump, Trump, Trump.

The former and ‘soon to be next’ President didn’t bother turning up for the Republican debate, which made the whole thing pointless and no doubt boosted the ratings for the Country Music Awards. Maybe he’ll choose Jelly Roll as his running mate, if the woman from Virginia turns him down.

Instead, Trump held a rally up the road in Hialeah, north of Miami, which attracted a crowd of, depending who you believe, 10,000, or, according to Trump, tens of millions, something like that. Uge!

Trump appears unstoppable, at least for the nomination. Polls in battleground states put him ahead of Biden, which is why even solid Democratic commentators are desperate to stop Biden running again. He’s the only candidate Trump could beat.

Meanwhile, The Donald was back in court this week to face the latest of the 91 criminal charges brought against him by fanatical Democrat prosecutors.

And that’s the problem with the U.S. system, which is where we came in. If every public official is elected, everything is political. The district attorney in New York — think Paul Giamatti in HBO’s Billions — was elected on a promise to bring down Trump while he was still President.

Along with a tame Democrat judge, she’s trying to bankrupt him, drive him out of business and bang him up in jail for three consecutive terms of 500 years if possible.

The judge actually declared Trump guilty before the trial began, although he has lost a certain credibility after he was discovered to have been posting pictures of his 74-year-old naked torso on social media. You couldn’t, etc.

Meanwhile in Georgia, they’re bringing racketeering charges against Trump, under the same statutes used against Al Capone.

This week, I read a headline about the FBI arresting a New York Don and his crime family. I naturally assumed it was the latest twist in the Trump saga. Turned out to be the boss of Gambino gangster clan, once run by John Gotti, the so-called ‘Teflon Don’, because of his ability to beat the rap time and again.

So does that make Trump the Telflon Don II, or the Velcro Don, since the Dems are trying to make everything stick to him? Watch this space. And, if Gotti and Scarface could run their empires from Alcatraz, who is to say Trump couldn’t run the Oval Office from jail, too?

Still, after wading through this lunacy, I’ve come to appreciate that maybe our British system isn’t that bad after all. At least the PM isn’t completely gaga, slumped in the No 10 basement wearing incontinence pants, and his main challenger isn’t up the steps at the Old Bailey on jumped-up charges which would have embarrassed the Kray Twins.

Nor does our constitutional monarchy look quite so archaic, either. There was a time when a younger version of me would have cheerfully seen every individual member of the Royal Family hanging from a lamp post in The Mall.

Sometimes, though, there are worse places than Ruritania. After surveying the political scene in America, I never thought I’d say this, but here goes . . .

God Save The King!

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