Will Lloyd on Gina Miller's attempted launch of a new party

There is a very good article on the "Unherd" website by Will Lloyd about the attempt to launch a new political party by Gina Miller. You can read it here.

The writing is mostly somewhere between irony and sarcasm interspersed with flashes of insight, beginning with the title, "So farewell, then, Gina Miller," an apparent allusion to the poems of "E. J. Thribb (17)." For anyone who doesn't get the reference, poems which start with "So farewell then" followed by a name are generally obituaries to that person, or in this case to her political career.

To give an example of the writing:

"She arrived. White heels, white suit; as pristine as fresh A4 paper. As blank as a lost memory. Miller looked angry; whether at the state of British politics, or at the sad sight of this unfilled room was hard to say. "

"Her speech was a blizzard of pointless adjectives, catastrophic predictions, and mangled metaphors. She talked about roadmaps that set out visions. She talked about “deafening silences” and creating a “government that works for everyone”. Miller wanted to “help real people in the real world”. Overworked words like these have a tainted character. They are hard to trust.

Miller chewed on them. Her tone drifted up nasally. Words were stuck in her sinuses. She tried a joke. “Status quo — Latin, some would say, for the mess we’re in.” It was a lawyer’s ventured joke. The product of a padlocked imagination."

"Moaning about Britain’s low productivity, Miller said we lagged behind the US, France, and Germany. “In fact,” she grimaced, “we only just beat Italy in productivity terms.” Italy! This was British xenophobia so classically proportioned she might have been Roy Chubby Brown. Italy!"

Actually I'd like to know if she paid royalties to John Cleese for the line about Italy - it appears to be a slightly updated version of a line used by Cleese in one of the Party Political Broadcasts he did for Dr David Owen and the SDP in the 1980's, which is still available on YouTube - you can find the comment about Italy starting five minutes and 18 seconds into the clip here.

I don't, by the way, criticise Gina Miller for trying to start a political party. Far better than anyone who is not happy with the state of British politics should try to actually do something about it whether by trying to set up a new party or joining one of ther existing ones than just sit back and do nothing. However, I think Will Lloyd accurately predicts how likely it is that "True and Fair" will make any impression.

Such is the nature of things that any new political party will be highly imperfect just as all the existing political parties are highly imperfect. Personally I will be sticking with the plan of trying to do what I can to improve the party which seems to me to be the least worst.