As every Saturday, we're going to look at this week's news cycle through an LGBTQ+ lens. Before we recap the most important headlines on Scene from the past five days, I want to zoom out and reflect on what's happening around our queer communities.
I usually focus on a couple of global issues, but this morning I'd like to look inwards and reflect on British politics, and the déjà vu that many people are almost certainly experiencing as they watch the latest Westminster psychodrama unfold.
Has the UK become ungovernable?
We have all read the countless articles about the Prime Minister's catastrophic judgement over Peter Mandelson's appointment as US Ambassador, without doubt the diplomatic top job. No other ambassador plays a more crucial role in the world than the one we sent to Washington. It has also been impossible to avoid the pundits queueing up to predict the exact moment they believe Keir Starmer will crumble under the pressure.
For our collective sanity, I won't dwell on either directly. Instead I want to sit with the question I recently put to Siân Berry MP on Political by Design: has the UK become ungovernable?
Over the past sixteen years, we have seen a procession of Prime Ministers: the poster boy, the cautious, the entertainer, the reckless, the manager. Leaders from different parties, with different ambitions, different convictions, and in some cases different galaxies of competence. All of them bound by the same fate. None managed to hold a government together long enough, or make the case compellingly enough, to sustain the faith of their backbenchers, let alone the electorate.
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