Between Reform and Conservatives, UK is out of ideas

British politics is so badly rotten you need a cheese knife to understand it, he writes Vince Hooper.

BRITISH POLITICS has reached a special stage of disintegration in which the most useful analytical tool is not a newspaper or an economist but a cheese knife. There’s no need to dissect politics or voting trends anymore. Just stand in front of the deli counter and point.

Because Westminster is now a dairy aisle.

sits on a plate UK Reformation – a sweaty slice of blue cheese; sharp, veiny, aggressive, and always slightly damp, as if it had been yelled at recently. On the other plate Conservative Party – something that used to be sturdy, noble and vaguely Churchillian, but now resembles the once proud Swiss: slight, perforated, giving way when poked. According to the reform leader Nigel FarageIt is inevitable that the two will merge. Even better, it will be a reverse takeover. The little cheese swallows the big cheese, like a Stilton piranha.

This is being sold as a bold realignment of the right. A new dawn! A fresh start! In practice, it’s more like a buffet, where at closing time someone puts leftovers in a bowl and calls it a salad.

In business, a reverse takeover requires cunning, capital and coordination. A reverse takeover in politics appears to involve Farage appearing with a pint, a cigar and a microphone and announcing: “Okay guys, I’m in charge now.” No PowerPoint. There is only Nigel, nicotine and fate.

It’s unclear whether conservatives are horrified or simply confused. They insist they were not swallowed. They insist that they are strong, independent and certainly not helpless. They say this with the insane confidence of a man who lost his trousers in a revolving door.

Reform’s theory of victory is elegant: recruit disaffected Conservatives, attract donors and declare that the Conservatives have betrayed their essence by accidentally running the country. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are responding with the dignity of a cornered badger: hissing, thrashing and insisting that everything is completely under control.

It’s not completely under control. The party that once produced Churchill’s He now prepares press releases. MPs resemble a cheese board pecked by crows. Once there was content, now there are only gaps; each represents a lost voter, a defection from a party, or the memory of someone who could speak confidently in public.

We can imagine the Carlton Club when Farage walks in; His boat shoes, his jacket, the way he waves his cigar like a baton. Portraits of Disraeli and Churchill instantly create a fine fog of tears. Bar staff instinctively hide the port.

For Reform voters, the Conservatives represent weakness, compromise and the faint whiff of technocracy. For Conservative voters, Reformation represents a bar argument gaining sensitivity. But commentators insist that these two sides must unite. They say the nation wants unity. It’s a polite way of saying: we’re out of ideas, bring the cheese quickly.

There is rich potential for branding such as Make Britain Grate Again. Donors face a dilemma: Should they continue funding the cheese with holes they already have, or invest in a smaller cheese that promises to smell even stronger? One can imagine hedge fund billionaires poring over the menus at St James’s, weighing up the relative advantages of Stilton and Swiss before ordering, out of both habit and indigestion.

There are risks. The appeal of reform lies in its external anger and lack of justified responsibility. If he really gains power, the fun might stop. Conservatives hold on to the memory of competence but can’t remember where they left it. Together they can create something so rich and indigestible that voters will run screaming into the arms of anyone who promises just to keep the lights on.

Australians watch this scene with pity. When parties pop in Australia, they do it outdoors, with barbecues, and with dignity. In Britain, they do this in windowless rooms with moist sandwiches, under portraits of dead men in wigs. At least in Canberra the cheese is refrigerated.

A royal cameo seems appropriate. Somewhere in Windsor, a corgi is sighing. We can imagine the late Queen, had she lived to see this, addressing the issue with a raised eyebrow and a silent instruction: “Pack this up, it smells awful.”

But maybe this is destiny. Britain has tried everything but this: Blairism, cameronism, Johnsonian antics, Trussian lettuce. Why not Cheesism? Historians may yet write: “Britain’s downfall came shortly after the Blue Cheese swallowed the Cheese with Holes. No one was surprised.”

When future voters walk past a polling station and smell the air, they’ll wonder why everything smells faintly of Stilton; Then they won’t remember this: Politics is that unpleasant anymore. Cheese and Ooze! Party.

Vince Hooper is a proud Australian/British citizen and professor of finance and discipline at the SP Jain School of Global Management, which has campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.

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