The new… Banana republic?

Once upon a time, the Brits lectured the world on political stability. They sanctimoniously exported parliamentary democracy, constitutional norms, and sternly worded opinions about how countries oughta govern themselves!! Today, however, with a sixth Prime Minister in ten years in the offing, they’re changing leaders at roughly the same rate that other nations change mobile phone contracts!!
Now, the term “banana republic” used to be mockingly applied by the Brits to third world countries where governments are fragile, leadership temporary, and political drama plays out continuously in living technicolor!! But it now seems Britain’s determined not to be left farther behind in the global economy and has decided to become a services-based banana republic!!
Consider the aforementioned British premiership. The job now resembles the position of drummer in Spinal Tap: prestigious in theory, but nobody expects you to survive very long. A voter can leave for a summer holiday under one PM and return to discover the country’s cycled through several!!  Children are now taught British political history using geological timescales: “The Sunak Period followed the Truss Event, which occurred shortly after the Johnson Epoch”!! We’ve just finished the Starmer interregnum and started the Burnham experiment!! This should be interesting and who knows, having the example of a namesake in its former colony of Guyana, Burnham might just decide to go whole hog on the Banana Republic bit!! Rigging elections in the offing – to “stabilize” the premiership??
Meanwhile, Downing Street has developed the atmosphere of a budget airline departure gate. PMs arrive, make an announcement about bold leadership, pose for photographs, and are shortly invited to proceed to the nearest exit. The funny thing though is that Brits continue presenting itself as a beacon of continuity!! There’s the monarchy; the ceremonial guards; Stonehenge!! Only the PM changes so frequently, civil servants probably keep removable nameplates in a drawer!!
Observers once worried about coups in Banana Republics. Britain has innovated by replacing coups with internal party meetings – which achieve much the same effect but with worse catering!! At this rate, future British elections may simply skip the middleman!! Instead of selecting MPs, voters could subscribe to a PM of the Month Club. Members receive a new leader every few weeks – along with a commemorative mug and a brief explanation of why the previous one had to go!!
The genius of the British system is that every departing PM assures the public that stability’s gonna return under the next PM – who immediately begins preparing their own farewell speech. For a nation that spent centuries preaching how government should work, Britain’s now become a demonstration of how government can be treated as a limited-time promotional offer!!
God save the King. SOMEONE gotta provide continuity!!

…PNC?
AS we gird up our loins for the upcoming local government elections, your Eyewitness offers some advice to Aubrey Norton to save the PNC. He remembers Joe Biden’s 2020 inauguration where that “skinny black girl” – as Amanda Gorman described herself – recited her poem that electrified the world in a vision for a new political culture – which he commends to Norton!!
“And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us./ We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside./ We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another./ We seek harm to none and harmony for all./ Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true./ That even as we grieved, we grew./ That even as we hurt, we hoped./ That even as we tired, we tried./ That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.”

…no mo
Did you know that Guyanese are the fifth largest ethnic group in New York?? The fact that Independence Day #60 was just acknowledged in fifty locations there – including Times Square – suggests ubiquity!!