The Great British Brush-Off

Politics in the Age of Déjà Vu

If Britain were a person in 2025, it would be the weary office worker who keeps muttering, “Haven’t we done this already?” every time a news alert pops up on their phone. The government has promised competence, the opposition has promised oversight, and what we’ve actually gotten is… well, let’s just call it a full-on spectacle of predictable chaos.

Somewhere between property licensing mistakes, lobbying scandals, sexual misconduct revelations, and MPs punching each other, yes, literally, the country has developed a new national pastime: the resigned shrug. Not cynicism, not outrage, just the slow, steady recognition that Westminster operates in a loop of its own making.

And yes, much of this could have been written in 2023 or 2024. Yet here we are, same plot, different actors, and the audience has started laughing bitterly into its tea.

Let’s start with the MPs who’ve made headlines for behaviour that is both absurd and institutionally instructive.

Take Scott Benton, the former Conservative MP for Blackpool South. He was caught on camera in a sting, suggesting he could bend rules in exchange for payment, a kind of political “freelancing” you’d expect more from a dodgy estate agent than a parliamentarian. The Independent Expert Panel found him guilty and imposed a 35-day suspension. Public trust? A little dented. Humour value? Off the charts.

Then there’s Chris Pincher, whose scandal became almost emblematic of Westminster’s worst moments: sexual misconduct in a private members’ club. The subsequent investigation led to an eight-week suspension, an appeal, and eventually his resignation. It’s hard to know whether the headlines are worse for the victims or for the institution itself, but either way, the phrase “significant damage to the House of Commons” now has a very literal ring to it.

Mike Amesbury, Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby, added a more physical dimension to parliamentary misdemeanours: pleading guilty to assault following a late-night incident. Again, the headlines write themselves. It’s hard to decide if this is a morality tale or a dark comedy.

And then there’s Lee Anderson, whose rooftop promo video for his TV appearances broke Commons rules and earned him a formal breach. The image of an MP on the Parliament roof, promoting himself with all the gravitas of a YouTube influencer, says a lot about the current political climate or at least about what counts as headline-worthy entertainment these days.

If the opposition was supposed to offer clarity, 2025 has been a rough year for that promise. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, managed to rent out her London property without the required licence, a simple oversight, perhaps, but when the person responsible for fiscal stewardship trips over municipal regulation, the optics are… challenging. Her explanation, that it was inadvertent and promptly corrected, did little to reassure anyone already wary of policy promises versus political practice.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, continues to straddle the line between cautious “leadership” and paralysis by analysis. Speeches abound in renewal, decency, stability, all the words that suggest competence. Yet when pressed on specifics, especially tax policy, the answer is a non-committal shrug: “We’ll see.” Voters were promised predictability and integrity. Instead, they get a mix of fuzzy messaging and déjà vu crises that could have been lifted from 2023 or 2024 news coverage. Same script, new season.

The irony is delicious. Labour promised a break from the chaos of previous years. What they delivered is the same chaos, packaged in worse wrapping.

Not all scandals are blockbuster material. Take MPs who misused their Commons email accounts for personal promotion, or those who forgot to declare trips funded by outside organisations. On paper, these are minor, almost procedural errors. But in aggregate, they show a system more like a “choose-your-own-adventure” than a tightly regulated legislature.

Alex Davies-Jones, for example, breached the Code of Conduct with a parliamentary question after a British Council-funded trip to Japan. No one was physically harmed, no one got assaulted, but the principle remains: rules exist for a reason, and MPs treating them like optional guidelines erode public trust in a slow, insidious way.

Here’s the kicker: Much of what we see in 2025 scandals, slow investigations, and minor and major breaches could have been written about in 2023 or 2024. The substance changes, the names rotate, but the narrative remains identical:

• MP breaks the rules
• Media coverage flares
• Committee investigation drags
• Suspension or reprimand occurs
• Life goes on
• Repeat

It’s like a bad sitcom whose writers have run out of original ideas. And the audience? The public has started to anticipate the punchline before the scene even begins.

Beyond breaches, the bigger issue is the gap between promises and delivery. Reeves promises a careful budget, then signals £40 billion in new spending. Starmer pledges stability and renewal but leaves voters guessing on whether his party will honour pledges around taxation and public spending.

Even MPs who haven’t committed offences are guilty of what I call “performative policy”: the meticulous crafting of a speech to look decisive without ever actually making a decision. It’s safe, it’s dull, and it’s increasingly transparent to the electorate.

Labour isn’t the only culprit. Across the aisle, the Conservatives have produced their own “great hits” of mismanagement and opportunism in the last few years, leaving voters frustrated with a perceived lack of accountability. Smaller parties exist largely in the wings, polite and well-behaved, the polite children in the room where the grown-ups keep knocking over the furniture.

Parliament in 2025 is less a forum of debate than a funhouse mirror: distorted, self-regarding, and slightly sticky. MPs legislate, advocate, promote, and occasionally assault, all under the watchful gaze of media, committees, and increasingly sceptical citizens. Yet the cycle continues because, somehow, the system tolerates it.

The real tragedy isn’t the scandal itself. It’s the normalisation of scandal. Suspension after suspension, reprimand after reprimand, and the headlines blur into a kind of bureaucratic white noise.

If the public wanted clarity, they were promised clarity. If they wanted integrity, they were promised integrity. Instead, they get:

• Property licensing mistakes by the Chancellor
• MPs offering paid access for private gain
• Sexual misconduct scandals
• Assault convictions
• Policy ambiguity packaged as careful governance

It’s exhausting. And yet the pattern repeats, year after year, like some sort of tragicomic Groundhog Day. 2025, 2024, 2023 swap the actors, keep the script, rinse, repeat.

Because governance is not entertainment. It’s about decisions that affect livelihoods, taxes, healthcare, and social services. When those entrusted with power treat rules as optional or policies as flexible narratives, the system’s authority erodes.

The repeated pattern also breeds political fatigue. Voters disengage. Cynicism grows. Democracy survives in form but struggles in spirit.

Much like the Great British Bin-Off, Westminster’s current state is a mix of colour-coded confusion and emotional weight. One MP’s “oops” is another’s headline, one scandal bleeds into the next, and the public is left holding a metaphorical compost bin of broken promises and minor triumphs. Every year, the bins are different, but the smell remains remarkably familiar.

And yes, the surreal part is that so much of this could have been written two years ago. Or three. It’s the same cycle, the same dramas, slightly different names. The only difference is that now, the public’s patience is thinning. Even the most committed political junkie feels the creeping sense of “what the hell is happening?”

Britain in 2025 is a country still fascinated by governance but increasingly weary of its practitioners. Suspensions, licensing errors, assaults, lobbying stings, they read like a bullet list of Westminster absurdities.

Yet the system survives. MPs come and go. Committees convene. Budgets are debated. Headlines are written. And the public, ever resilient, keeps their kettle at the ready, their eye on the next election, and their sense of humour intact.

Because if the last three years have taught us anything, it’s this: Westminster will continue to recycle its dramas, as predictable and frustrating as mismatched bin days, and we’ll keep watching, shrugging, and occasionally laughing into our tea.

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