They say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It seems, however, that in the land of the sighted the blind man has a chance to be king, for, since the very beginning, the current British government has excelled in remaining painfully oblivious to that which is blindingly obvious to the rest of us. Like the time Dominic Raab 'didn't realise' to importance of ports to an island nation. Or when Johnson seemingly forgot about the UK's largest export to the EU in his deal that would apparently allow the UK to 'prosper mightily'. Or when multiple members of the cabinet expressed shock at the breach of the Capitol, and event that the rest of us have seen coming since the election. 

Priti Patel was so shocked that she delivered the single most wordy 'beyond words' speech in living memory, saying 'they [the events] are just shocking, absolutely shocking beyond words, quite frankly. There's no justification for the absolute violence that we have seen. It's a real tragedy. America is a great ally of ours and we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in good times and bad times, and we all look to America when it comes to those pivotal events like their presidential elections, but also that incredible period of that smooth transition.'

Poor Priti. The last time she was allowed to go out to face the press, she proved she couldn’t count, and now she is finally allowed out again, she has to make a fool of herself again. After all, now that we have severed ourselves the EU, the US constitutes the only people dumb enough help us.

So Priti was stuck with telling the white supremacists who stormed the Capitol that they were being very, very, bad people who were misbehaving.

British diplomacy at its finest. Like the time during the cold war when we gave the USSR some of our best jet engines, telling them they were for strictly civilian uses only, and were not to be installed in military aircraft. The Soviets rather predictably installed them in military aircraft, then used them to shoot down multiple very confused USAF pilots.

As Priti saw fit to embarrass herself in front of the nation, our PM decided act in a way that would befit his rank by telling the world that ‘the United States stands for democracy around the world’. Well done, Boris. Let’s all go and remind Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, and the US of the interventionist ‘knight in shining armour’ period of American diplomacy.  What could possibly go wrong? It’s not as if we would be making lots powerful enemies when what we really need to be doing is making lots of powerful friends.

Now we have stopped careening towards the cliff and are actually falling off it, we really should stop making fools of ourselves and start garnering support. And making pithy comments and offending potential allies is not the way to go about it.

Please note that this is an opinion article, and may not represent the views of The Curious Times.