Written by Alex Sims
As chaos ensues in Westminster, Stylist contributor Alex Sims can’t help but question what toll it’s all taking on our collective sanity.
Remember that cartoon meme of the dog drinking coffee while everything burns down around it? Well, it feels pretty apt right now, doesn’t it?
Prime Minister (for now) Boris Johnson has announced he’ll be stepping down as party leader after no fewer than 59 MPs resigned from government in 48 hours – the highest number of Downing Street resignations in modern history.
Such is the scale of the departures that it has led to huge gaps in the running of parliament – a situation summed up by the fact we’ve had three education secretaries in as many days.
Resignation letters have arrived at the door of Number 10 thick and fast from all areas of government and the resignations have led to worries that policy reforms and bill readings that will directly affect the public won’t take place on time.
“My bill committee for tomorrow has been cancelled. No ministers available to work on legislation,” Labour MP Rachael Maskell wrote on Twitter. While a source from the department of levelling up told the i’s housing correspondent, Vicky Spratt, that “everyone is very worried about what this means for housing reform” now there is only one minister in the department responsible for housing.
“The minister can’t sensibly argue that we have a functioning government when this number of people are missing. There are no people to do statutory committees and legislation,” despaired Labour MP Angela Eagle in the House of Commons. “The government is disintegrating.”
While Westminster has been unravelling, I’ve been at home trying to sort out my taxes, pay bills, clean my flat and generally attempt to keep my life in some sort of order. But I can’t shake the feeling that any attempt to give myself some structure right now feels utterly inane and increasingly preposterous while the fabric of our society is being whipped out from under our feet.
No matter what we think about Johnson and his cabinet’s politics, there’s no denying that politicians and the government set the tone for our collective shared reality. It means that this sort of sea-change in such a concentrated period has a way of making society at large feel completely unstable.
As Johnson gets to the task of appointing a new front bench and filling the vacancies in his government, so many questions remain: who the hell is really in charge of the country right now? Who will be the next prime minister? Is there a general election on the cards? What on earth is going on?
The fact that we, the public, have to be content to just sit and watch as everything implodes feels utterly dizzying.
It’s a situation that conjures up a whole hellscape of feelings that were brought to the fore during the pandemic. In the same way that the public began locking down and wearing masks before Johnson and his government even acknowledged the need to do so, it feels again like we’re watching the UK fall apart without any sign of leadership to guide us. It’s chaotic and uncertain, and it’s bringing on an exhaustion that’s felt all too familiar over the last two years.
Even more galling is seeing MPs swapping allegiances, slipping in and out of government positions like they’re going out of fashion and preventing essential legislation from being debated while we are all in a precarious situation living through the biggest cost of living crisis in a generation.
The next few months may feel marred with confusion and uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean I’ve run out of hope just yet. As ever, despite the turmoil, social media has become a place of collective solidarity as we all despair at the chaos together.
It’s a reminder that the British public will keep each other’s spirits up in the toughest of times – just as we did during the Covid lockdowns – and for now, that’s a little silver lining I’ll be holding on to.
Images: Getty
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