ROTTEN SPLENDOUR

If there are three more insufferable 'men' than King Charles, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer, I’d be hard-pressed to think of them right now. Glancing at this week's bizarre, stultifying state visit organised for the French President, one couldn’t help but scorn the unnecessary indulgence—especially given the looming financial storm quietly being reaped due to the incompetent Rachel Reeves and the treasury (the interest rate on 30-year gilts climbed to 5.453% this week, exceeding the 5% peak of Liz Truss’s mini-budget disaster in September 2022).

Watching this grotesque spectacle of rotten splendour rolled out for Macron and his wife felt like something from one of those sweaty-looking late Visconti films, where the lassitude of the attendees suggests they’ve been in and around power for far too long. Though Starmer has only been in office for a year, it already feels like ten. King Charles (looking increasingly like an overboiled ham) has been a wretched successor to the late Queen and would be of far more benefit to himself and the nation by conversing with his plants in his lavish Highgrove estate than by repeatedly breaking Queen Elizabeth II’s golden rule of avoiding political interference. Macron—by hook or by crook—has managed to cling to power, even though he, like Starmer in Britain, is detested by a huge amount of his countrymen and women having recently experienced a 'historic trough' for a French President according to approval ratings.

At least the Frenchman has a certain oily charm, like a second-hand car salesman meets Inspector Clouseau. But Starmer (God help us) is like listening to a strangled Dalek. 'Dear Keir' can’t help himself these days; he has no choice but to take refuge in international posturing because he knows there’s not a corner of this island that thinks he’s doing a good job. He has the lowest approval rating of any Prime Minister in history (-34 net satisfaction), so he seeks approval from his peers in political circles instead. It’s clear he loathes the populace of Britain and only wants power so that he can drag the UK back into the failing European Union, like a naughty schoolkid who’s attempted to rebel against his lame, boring parents.

Day by day, Starmer is destroying the reputation of this country, and it seems wholly deliberate—as if the lower we sink, the more we’ll end up on our knees begging to rejoin the EU. Macron enjoys telling us off like a French super nanny while we have to listen to his patronising crap sitting on our naughty step. As for old Charlie boy, one can only assume he’s a secret republican systematically sabotaging the Royal Family from within.

He’s certainly convincing me.

God save us.