Or what about Theresa May, the short-lived premier who failed to bust her country out of the European Union and then was promptly busted out of office because of it. On a trip to Africa, she busted into a dance that one commentator compared to that of “a baby robot giraffe.”
And then there’s Liz Truss. So dramatic was her implosion as prime minister that a British tabloid broadcast a livestream of a ball of lettuce and asked which would last longer. The vegetable (that is, the lettuce) won.
It’s not just your impression. British politics is funnier than that of other countries, said Steve Gimbel, professor of philosophy at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College and author of “Isn’t that Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy.”
“In a certain sense, it traces back to the Roman notion of satire,” when poets like Juvenal and Horace used caricature to shame political figures to change their ways, he said. “In the case of British politics, they self-caricature.”
Never mind the tradition of Prime Minister’s Questions, in which political leaders trade scripted barbs to forced guffaws from their party’s MPs. Britain’s most rib-tickling episodes happen during unguarded moments.
Unlike in the United States, where ivy-league educated politicians like Bill Clinton, Ted Cruz or Ron DeSantis try to pass themselves off as Joe-Six-Pack everymen, many British politicians — especially from Sunak’s Tory party — present themselves with patrician sophistication that’s easily, and often hilariously, punctured.
