Remember when Britain knew how to do a good political scandal? Secretaries of State sharing showgirls with Soviet attachés. A member of parliament faking his own death. The Tories launching a ‘Back to Basics’ moral crusade even though half the party seemed to be getting their leg over someone who wasn’t their wife. Those were the days. You were guaranteed a good kick out of a scandal back then.
Fast forward to 2023 and what is scandalising politics now? The fact that the PM didn’t wear a seatbelt in the back seat of his car. The fact that Rishi Sunak was not strapped in while he was filming a little video about levelling up for his Instagram page. ‘Beltgate’, some people are calling it. Shoot me now. This has got to be the lamest, daftest ‘gate’ of modern times.
It is all further tragic proof of British decline
When it was first reported that Rishi had been captured not wearing a belt, I thought to myself there’s no way this will become a thing. There’s no way people will give a toss. Even the Tory-bashing left is surely not so desperate for that fleeting frisson of political rectitude that they’ll make a big deal out of seatbelt-free Sunak. How wrong I was.
The media are treating the seatbelt scandal seriously. Labour is milking it, naturally. ‘Rishi Sunak doesn’t know how to manage a seatbelt, his debit card, a train service, the economy, this country’, a spokesman said. The terminally online are calling for Sunak to get another fixed penalty notice, to go with the one he got for eating birthday cake in Downing Street during lockdown. Eating cake and briefly taking off his seatbelt? Typical Tory scum.
Now even the police are sticking their beaks in. Lancashire Constabulary – for it was in their jurisdiction that the unspeakable offence occurred – are ‘making enquiries’ into the seatbelt affair. This is beyond stupid. What a waste of police resources. Aren’t there burglaries and assaults for you guys to solve? To my mind, a police force ‘looking into’ a video showing the PM not wearing a seatbelt is far more scandalous than the PM not wearing a seatbelt. Can we get policegate going instead?
This probably isn’t the best time to admit that I didn’t even know it was an offence not to wear a seatbelt in the back of a car. Cripes. Sunak did know, though, and he has apologised for his gaffe. It was a brief error of judgement, he says. You’re not allowed those anymore, I’m afraid Rishi. No politician’s slip-up is too small or fleeting not to be turned into scandal fodder for bored social-media Twits and cops who want to hit the headlines.
It is all further tragic proof of British decline. We used to be world-beaters in industry, pop and scandal. Now we can’t even open a coalmine without the middle classes going into meltdown, we have to suffer the TV ad music of bland bands like The 1975, and where we once gave the world John Profumo and the glorious Christine Keeler we now give it shock headlines about the PM sitting in the back of his car. Get it together, Britain. We need a proper political scandal, pronto.
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