Behold the United Kingdom, a damp collection of rocks currently inhabited by a political class that believes 'calm' is a functional synonym for 'catatonic.' This week’s pantomime of mediocrity features Ed Miliband—a man whose primary contribution to history remains his inability to consume a bacon sandwich with dignity—stepping into the fray to defend Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s strategy regarding Donald Trump. Miliband describes Starmer’s approach as 'calm' and 'de-escalating.' In the vocabulary of the anaemic centrist, 'de-escalation' is the term we use when we have zero leverage, less charisma, and a surplus of existential dread. It is the diplomatic equivalent of a toddler closing their eyes so the monster under the bed can’t see them. Starmer’s leadership isn’t 'right' on this; it’s simply nonexistent. It’s the silence of a man who has realized he is trapped in an elevator with a loud, unpredictable orange animal and has decided that playing dead is his only viable survival instinct.

While Miliband spins cowardice as a virtue, the Prime Minister is busy packing his bags for Beijing. The irony is so thick you could carve it with a dull knife. While the UK government blathers about 'national security' and 'protecting our values,' they have quietly waved through controversial plans for the Chinese government to build a gargantuan embassy in London. It is a fortress in the heart of the capital, granted to a superpower at the exact moment Starmer is heading east to beg for crumbs of trade. This is the new British Sovereignty: selling off the literal soil of London to provide a convenient base for foreign surveillance, all while pretending to be a serious global player. Starmer navigates the geopolitical stage with the grace of a man wearing two left shoes, desperately trying to please everyone while being respected by absolutely no one. The 'tricky situation' Miliband mentions isn't an external threat; it's the internal vacuum where a backbone should be. We are witnessing the managed decline of a prestige brand, where the managers are too busy patting themselves on the back for their 'calmness' to notice the hull is made of Swiss cheese.

And then we have Nigel Farage, the self-appointed voice of the 'forgotten' man, who has conveniently forgotten to mention nearly £400,000 in income. Seventeen times. Seventeen. To put that in perspective, most of Farage’s supporters would be evicted or jailed for failing to declare a ten-pound note to the taxman, yet Nigel manages to 'inadvertently' overlook a small fortune because of 'administrative issues.' It turns out that being a populist firebrand is an incredibly lucrative grift, provided you don’t let the pesky sunlight of transparency ruin the aesthetic. Farage’s apology to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was a masterclass in performative humility. He is 'sincerely sorry'—not that he took the money, mind you, but that he got caught failing to tick the boxes. The 'man of the people' lives in a world where £380,000 is a rounding error, a mere oversight caused by a subpar filing cabinet.

The system, predictably, has accepted this excuse with a polite nod. The Parliamentary Commissioner concluded the breaches were 'inadvertent,' which is the official code word for 'you’re too famous for us to actually punish.' This is the beautiful symmetry of the British disaster: on one side, you have the performative competence of the Labour frontbench, who use 'calm' to mask their total irrelevance; on the other, you have the performative rebellion of the Right, which is nothing more than a profitable hobby for a man who can’t count his own gold. Both sides treat the public as a collective of idiots who won't notice that the 'sensible' leaders are selling the country and the 'anti-establishment' heroes are laughing all the way to the bank. It is a cycle of incompetence and greed that would be tragic if it weren't so predictably boring. We are trapped in a loop of administrative errors and de-escalation, governed by men who are only 'sincerely sorry' when the cameras are on and the bank accounts are full. Humanity’s capacity for stupidity is truly the only infinite resource we have left.