KARMA Times at No 10

’Well,’ said Johno, ‘that must have been the longest suicide note in the history of politics.’ Janno and Alphy looked confused. ‘Liz Truss’s mini-budget,’ said Johno, grinning.

‘Alas, another female PM bites the dust,’ said Janno.

’Well this time it wasn’t a case of misogyny, more like miss oddity,’ replied Johno. ‘It was quite an achievement for an avowed libertarian Conservative to panic financial markets, cause the Bank of England to intervene, and alienate not only most of the country but most of her own party, resulting in a Truss deficit lower than the Mariana Trench, eventuating in her forced resignation, after just 44 days in office.’

'Interesting to contrast Democracy versus Autocracy,’ said Alphy. ‘The UK and Australia have had four and six Prime Ministers respectively, in the last decade. Meanwhile Xi Jinping has been the sole President of China for just under a decade, and surprise surprise, has now been re-elected, and thanks to rule changes he implemented, can in theory remain as President until he dies.’

'Yes, so in addition to the current Tsar Wars, we can now look forward to the inevitability of PANDAmonium, when Xi inevitably invades or subverts Taiwan,’ said Johno.

'Well, what a mess the Earth is in,’ thought Alphy to himself.

• Human induced ecological catastrophes – evidenced by ongoing calamitous flooding in Australia;
• Democratic Decline and the rise of Aggressive Authoritarianism.
• Raging inflation, where the only solution the Sophisticated Sap Economists have is to raise interest rates. Centaurians even had an acronym for this lack of economic acumen: Shite - Saps hopeless ineptitude transforming economies;

Alphy observed that the political pendulum was swinging between two extremes. At one end, was the increasingly common failing of democracies, that politicians constantly lacked long-term leadership and instead adopted populist short-term and suboptimal solutions, in order to maximise their chances of reelection. At the other extreme was the rise of authoritarian regimes, who were implementing their long-term visions, but through fear, control, and coercion. Unfortunately, their visions were most often flawed and self-serving, and often involved barbaric acts such as genocide, unprovoked invasions, and systematic elimination or imprisonment of those identified as enemies of the state, i.e. those opposed to the incumbent dictator.

Alphy’s musings were interrupted by Johno, 'And then unbelievably Boris de Brexit announced he might decide to contest for the role of PM again. No doubt, if he had been successful, he would have been accompanied by the song, Send in the Clowns. Eventually, Boris declared he is not going to run as it “would not be the right thing to do,” especially if you know you don’t have the numbers to win it, said Johno with a wink.

'So Rishi Sunak, a Hindu of Indian heritage, has emerged as the UK Prime Minister, and the first one of colour. Given the long list of inept Prime Ministers Britain has had in the last decade or more, the Conservatives can’t risk another failure. But, given the parlous state of the British economy, there must be many asking, “does he have the Tikka to be PM?”’