FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LONDON -It felt painful to watch Rishi Sunak who announced the early elections in front of the black door of Downing Street: the incessant rain first drawing drops on his jacket, then increasingly larger patches of wetness, while the protesters’ loudspeakers blared Things can only get better(Things Can Only Get Better), the anthem of Tony Blair’s New Labour.
The prime minister’s words ended up literally drowned by the water and the noise: his sentences could barely be heard, in an almost disjointed way, while he tried to remain impassive under the buckets falling from the sky. But they had no mercy on him on social media, where the irony spread in a few hours: merciless comparisons with Barack Obama and Mr Darcy, sarcasm from the (unofficial) Instagram page of the cat Larry (the chief mousecatcher of Downing Street), Rishi also trolled by the usual Ryanair PR people.
Who knows why no one thought of accompanying him with an umbrella: perhaps he wanted to show that he was able to brave the elements, but the result was that of an end of the kingdom over which the clouds of the universal flood parted. «Things can only get wetter», paraphrased the English newspapers unanimously.
Of these 14 years of Conservative governmentwhat the replicant says at the end of Blade Runner applies: «All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain».
