Tower Bridge, London

Source: Bigstock

On the Fourth of July last week I celebrated the world’s most exclusive club, Pugs, with my fellow members at a London venue. I had crossed over the Atlantic the day before and missed the fireworks that commemorate the most important revolution to date. 248 years ago the colonists had had enough and declared themselves free from British rule. But you know all that, although there are still lots of half-wits in America who think the country still practices slavery, bigotry, and malice toward women.

Never mind. Fourth of July last week was also election day in Britain, and boy, did members of Pugs take notice. Our president, Prince Pavlos of Greece, did not show up due to an important meeting in Athens, a fact that had our vice president, Sir Bob Geldof, turning into Orlando Furioso over his absence. The Pugs’ yearly lunch is considered more important than any state occasion, with one of the founders—yours truly—and another member, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, flying in from our respective long distances for the occasion. We began lunch at 12:45 and finished at 5:30. Count Bismarck, Arki Busson, Edward Hutley, Roger Taylor, and the previously mentioned Indian prince and yours truly were present. I proposed that Tara and Mark Getty be struck from the membership for failure to pay dues and continuous absences from the twice-yearly meetings. (The other one takes place on the private island of a fellow member in the Aegean Sea every August.) My proposal was ignored while we discussed the latest Sony acquisition of Queen music. Our fellow member Roger Taylor has just pocketed $1 billion, so he generously offered to pay for lunch. Just think of it, play drums and after a while a large corporation approaches you and gives you a cool billion greenbacks for the rights to your music. I have never seen a man so eager to pay for lunch, nor have I known anyone who more deserved the moola.

Following the very liquid lunch, it was time to discuss politics. For some strange reason the Fourth of July is not celebrated in Britain—they’re bad sports—instead an election was called by the man who stabbed Boris in the back and took his place as Prime Minister. It didn’t work out for him. As a wit at our table said, “A lower-middle-class knight evicted an Asian family from their home.” The Conservatives deserved the drubbing they got, and then some. They governed as liberals instead of conservatives, and they actually thought they could get away with it. Boris won in a landslide as a right-winger five years ago, and the next thing he did was aim for Net Zero, a fantasy that only freaks and Hollywood types pretend to believe in. But here’s my point: If the British system of first past the post is democratic, I am Kamala Harris.

The figures don’t lie, the rigged system does: Labor won in a landslide with 33.7 percent of the vote. His losing predecessor five years ago got more votes but less seats. One-third of the vote gave Labour two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. And it gets better—worse, that is. The Reform party, headed by my friend and the best Englishman around, Nigel Farage, got 4.1 million votes and five seats in Parliament. The Liberal Democrats received 3.6 million votes and got seventy seats in Parliament. If that’s democracy, I’m Kim Kardashian. It’s a distorted system that has the winning party sweeping two-thirds of the seats with less than 34 percent of the vote. Again, if that’s democracy, I’m Donald Duck. Quack, quack.

For what it’s worth, the Brits are smiling wallet-lifters. They know the tricks better than anyone, and their first-past-the-post system is the proof if any were needed. The future of the Conservative Party depends on if it has learned its lesson. High taxes, woke police, and high immigration spell doom. Nigel Farage leading the Tories is the only solution. Have they learned their lesson? Of course they have not. The Telegraph and the Mail are busy heaping abuse on the only man who can save them. Go figure, as they say in the state of Brooklyn.

A couple of weeks ago I bragged to Takimag readers that my long experience told me that nothing changes in the Land of Cheese. And nothing did. Marine Le Pen’s NR was ganged up on by everyone on the left and center, and the National Front is now in charge. The only change I see is in the French national football team. It now consists of ten black players and one white. Soon it will be eleven blacks. C’est tout, as they say in la belle France.