Dem
47
GOP
53
On Monday, the United Kingdom officially got its 7th prime minister in the last decade. The new guy is Andy Burnham who, until a few weeks ago, was Mayor of Greater Manchester. In his first set of remarks as PM, Burnham noted that the office has had a lot of instability recently, and that he would work to rectify that. Easier said than done, as six people can personally confirm for Burnham.
One of the first tests for a new PM these days, outside of dealing with domestic issues, is dealing with Donald Trump. Each man has badmouthed the other in the past, with Trump slurring Burnham as "too liberal" and Burnham slamming Trump for his "polarized, poisonous politics." That said, it's much easier to carry on this kind of pi**ing contest when one of the pi**ers is not the leader of their country. It's rather less practical once both sides are in power. We'll see if Trump tries to hit the Brits with 50% tariffs, Canada-style.
Meanwhile, Britons are going to get a chance next month to indirectly poke Trump in the eye. We've written about the by-election for the seat in Parliament left vacant by the resignation of Nigel Farage, who is the U.K.'s answer to Trump. Farage is running for reelection to the seat—his resignation was to make a point—and he's drawn more than 30 opponents. The highest-profile of those, as we noted, is the joke candidate Binface. And, at the moment, Binface not only has the endorsements of two former PMs—Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson—he's also leading Farage in the latest poll of the race, 33% to 21%. If ever there is a nation where voters might actually elect a joke candidate to make a point, it's the U.K. The election is on August 13; we'll certainly be watching. (Z)