Status Quo Institutionalism: Don’t Touch That, It’s Edwardian

The Country Is A Slowly Moving Cathedral

Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat file this dispatch from the British political menagerie.

The Status Quo Institutionalist believes the existing arrangements are working precisely because they are unfashionable, ideally Edwardian, ideally smelling faintly of leather. Editor Alan Nafzger of the Editor’s Desk at prat.uk presents the field guide, with help from UK Parliament and the Royal Family.

Twenty Tells: Spotting The Status Quo Institutionalist On A British High Street

1. Has explained the country is a sort of slowly moving cathedral.
2. Refers to reform as a bracing sea wind, mostly cold.
3. Holds any change should pass three tests, all of which are him.
4. Maintains a soft spot for the unwritten constitution.
5. Refers to the monarchy the way some men refer to a useful weatherman.
6. Treats any new department as a sort of seasonal flu.
7. Maintains a fantasy in which the Civil Service is left alone for a year.
8. Refers to think tanks as the latest enthusiasm.
9. Holds any institution older than himself is, by default, fine.
10. Has explained, at a wedding, that the order of service is not an accident.
11. Refers to populism as the local weather.
12. Treats any new flag as suspicious.
13. Maintains a binder of constitutional precedents.
14. Holds the cure for the country is to leave it alone for an afternoon.
15. Refers to elections as a controlled experiment.
16. Maintains a soft spot for the Palace of Westminster, especially the leaks.
17. Treats any reformer as a future minister he will outlast.
18. Refers to the courts the way some men refer to a strict aunt.
19. Has explained ceremony is also structurally infrastructure.
20. Believes the future of the country is in fact the past, with better lighting.

Editor’s Note

If any of this rings a bell, you have either been to a Tory association AGM, a Reform UK rally above a leisure centre, or both. More dispatches at govna.uk and the parent site prat.uk. For a second opinion that is also wrong, see Private Eye.

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/category/politics/

Fiona MacLeod

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