Absent at the helm

It's been 55 days since the United Kingdom's poster-boy for corruption and sleaze announced he was resigning. Boris Johnson – chest puffed with pride from managing to siphon away billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to friends nad donors – patriotically stated that he would "carry on" as a caretaker Prime Minister until the next one was chosen. Splendid stuff.

Except, it's far from splendid. For starters, that those responsible for choosing the next leader of the United Kingdom are the same Spitfire-worshipping, Vera Lynn-revering sychophants who put Johnson there in the first place. And with the results due in less than a week, when presented with a choice between awful and completely awful, they appear set to embrace the completely awful choice with open arms.

Liz Truss – a politician with all the charisma of a wet paper bag – looks to be first in line to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Truss, whose principal hobbies appear to include shouting "But Woke!" very loudly in empty rooms, has a managed to navigate her way to the highest office in the land.

Hoping to lead us – finally – into the sunlit uplands post-Brexit, she has a chequered voting history at best. She has generally voted against bills to prevent climate change. She voted to raise UK's undergraduate tuitition fees, making them the most expensive in the world. She has also consistently voted against raising the income tax rates for top earners above £150,000.

In short, she's a neo-Conservative. An idealogue convinced that working harder will somehow magically make you immune from the real world pressures of the cost-of-living crisis currently tearing through the country. After all, why would energy bills be a problem? Just stick them on expenses.

The result of this Conservative Party melodrama is simple: the government have effectively gone on holiday while the country burns. Literally. Water companies are pumping raw sewage onto the beaches and the only plan put forward to deal with it will result in – you guessed it – you paying for it.

That's not to mention the frankly mind-bending increases in energy bills. I've seen on Twitter the inevitable start to the happen: businesses posting closure notices because they simply cannot handle 300% increases in energy bills. The government have failed to announce any support for businesses, and their support for residential properties doesn't kick in until next month.

And all of this is against a backdrop of UK gas and electricity producers forecasting as much as £170 BILLION in "excess profits" over the next two years. It's not hard to see what's going on here. It's a price gouge, and the war in Ukraine is being used as an excuse to justify massive increases in prices. It would be the ideal time to introduce a windfall tax. But, guess what? Liz Truss has ruled that out, saying the profits of energy giants are "not evil".

Things are going to get very rough this winter. Between the strains and pressures of rising costs and interest rates on families and businesses, the shadow of Covid remains, lurking over proceedings. A new variant, with subsequent lockdowns, could finish off vast swathes of the hospitality industry should it come to pass.

If – as seems likely – Liz Truss is the next custodian of No. 10 Downing Street, things will get a lot worse before they get better. Rishi Sunak, I'd imagine, would not be much better. Britain needs a wholesale change of leadership. For all the flaws and total lack of charisma on the Labour front bench, there is no way they could be worse. We've now reached a point where a modicum of integrity, decency and intelligence would raise the bar, regardless of political ideology.

Basically, God help us all.