Britain’s best hope is a PM with the charisma of frozen peas

British politics has long been impersonating its Australian cousin – though that may come as a shock to those here who mistakenly believe that what happens in Canberra is internationally irrelevant. Tony Blair’s New Labour project was a ripoff of the Third Way policies of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. British Tories lionised John Howard, regarding him as an antipodean Margaret Thatcher; the iron man.

Lynton Crosby was conscripted by the Conservative Party in the hope that this “Wizard of Oz” could teach them the secrets of how to win four elections on the trot. So it came as little surprise to hear Rishi Sunak promise to “stop the boats”, as he announced an election on July 4 which most Westminster watchers expected much later in the year. Now, though, he needs to replicate what happened in the 2019 Australian federal election, and pull off a UK version of Scott Morrison’s “miracle” win. Or to do a Howard, and become Lazarus with a triple bypass.

Biblical references may be jarring for Britain’s first prime minister of colour, a man of devout Hindu faith. But the cloudburst in Downing Street as a rain-soaked Sunak announced his shock move looked like something out of the Old Testament. “The deluge,” was the headline in The Spectator. “Drowning Street,” was another tabloid take. With the Conservatives trailing Labour in the polls by more than 20 points, Sunak is expected to sink rather than swim. “Gone on the Fourth of July.”

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is expected to become Britain’s eighth prime minister since 2007 – another mirror image of Australia, which over the same period has also had eight PMs. Starmer has also adopted the formula used by Anthony Albanese in 2022: the promise of risk-free change underpinned by a meagre manifesto. Small-target stuff. As in Australia, there’s no great groundswell for the Labour leader, a former crown prosecutor with all the charisma of a packet of frozen peas.

It speaks of Britain’s democratic malaise that you have to reach back to the victory of Tony Blair in 1997 to find an election where voters were genuinely enthusiastic about a change of government. As Sunak made his announcement, someone near the entrance to Downing Street even pumped out the D:Ream song Things Can Only Get Better, which became the theme tune of Blair’s first electoral triumph. But rather than getting better, things in Britain these days only seem to lurch from one omnishambles to the next.

Recently, of course, this neologism was co-opted by the judge in the Bruce Lehrmann libel case. But “omnishambles” first surfaced in the 2005 Westminster satire In the Thick of It. Daily, and sometimes hourly, we are reminded that Britain remains its spiritual home.

After the buffoonery of Boris Johnson, an ominishambles in human form, Britain had to endure 49 days of Liz Truss, who did not even have the durability of an iceberg lettuce. Sunak, while more decorous and economically literate, has struggled to appear genuinely prime ministerial. The 44-year-old has the jumpy energy of a children’s TV presenter rather than the gravitas of a modern-day Gladstone or Disraeli.

Just as worrying for Britain have been the failings of its institutions. Britain’s rivers and seas have been inundated with raw sewage. Its Post Office has been hit by scandal, after hundreds of postmasters were falsely accused of stealing money because of faulty software. With the number of migrants coming ashore on small boats soaring to 45,774 in 2022, compared with just 299 four years ago, the Sunak government has been accused of losing control of Britain’s borders. There are hardly blue skies over the white cliffs of Dover.