I have not had the privilege of spending much time in the UK since Theresa May picked up the ball up from the back of scrum following David Cameron’s spectacular EU referendum backfire. The UK was meant to stay in Europe and Cameron was meant to remain as prime minister, but his tactical ploy messed up big time.

From that sense maybe it would be better to leave it to the Experts and Press Wizards to sum up Britain’s latest election – set for June 8, 2017. But as Michael Gove asserted, the British public have “had enough of experts”. So let me have a go at dissecting it for you.

First off, Prime Minister May likes to emphasise that she’s a ‘strong and stable’ leader – read weak and wobbly. She might draw comparisons with Thatcher (mostly because she happens to be female) but her incredulously drab personality has far more in common with John Major than the Iron Lady. He also caught a loose ball following a messy Tory in-fight, picked up the pieces against a far left candidate – Neil Kinnock – in 1992 and then got slaughtered by New Labour in 1997.

So what does Mrs May actually stand for? Despite being a Remainer (albeit a tactically very quiet one) she is now Out Front leading the charge for ‘hard Brexit’ – whatever the hell that means. She talks a tough game with European leaders, but this long and gruelling divorce has barely started and already the complications seem unassailable.

While the Remoaners should admit that leaving the EU is not the end of the world, Brexiters would do well to embrace some of the Institution’s better aspects. Sure, it’s democratically questionable (I apologise for bringing Nigel Farage into the equation, however as he points out the EU Parliament is in effect a self-gratifying echo chamber, since the power to legislate is vested in the unelected European Commission – unlike the British House of Commons or America’s Congress.) Still, our First Past the Post voting system is hardly a beacon of democratic representation…

Anyhow, I’m getting sidetracked; these are other questions for other days.

Mrs. May has torn up the fixed term parliament policy introduced by Cameron and Clegg in 2010 and called a snap election in the hope of scoring an overwhelming victory over Labour and the rest of the progressive riff-raff – namely the Lib Dems, Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Trust me, she says: a safe pair of hands for a shaky situation.

And whose fault is that? Europe aside, there’s plenty to be pissed off about. Hard up nurses using food banks as they prop up a cash-starved NHS, an increase in child poverty and swingeing benefit cuts. Sky-rocketing rents and stagnant real wages is a toxic combination. When inflation outstrips average wage growth – as it has done for many years – you’ll get indignant faces.

After all, our government is mired in debt, as hard-earned tax payer money found its way into the hands of the Banks after the 2008 Financial Meltdown. Austerity is biting those most in need. Back in 2010 Cameron insisted such cuts were necessary to eliminate the deficit by the end of 2015. Except it’s now 2017 and the Tories are barely half-way there.

That’s Tory fiscal credibility for you. And that’s modern Britain for you – socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. It might not be as bad as Greece or Yemen, but it’s hardly a record to brag about. Maybe that’s why Mrs. May refuses to engage Mr. Corbyn in a live TV debate. Her recent Q and A sessions have  underlined the severe plot holes in her self-serving narrative.

Meanwhile, her voting record since arriving in Parliament in 1997 appears inconsistent and opportunistic. She’s certainly something of a War Hawk, supporting every parliamentary motion to bomb and invade Iraq in 2002-03, the no fly zone in Libya in 2011, and several votes to use airstrikes and impose economic sanctions on Syria. While denouncing the regimes of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, she’s happy enough to sell British-made weapons to Saudi Arabia in the blink-of-an eye.

Sadly she is not distinguished in supporting such measures, but that doesn’t make her record any sweeter. She did indeed serve as Britain’s longest Home Secretary in history, though longevity should not be mistaken for competence. See Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Blair’s third terms as prime minister.

So what about the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn? Like Prime Minister May he was elected to the House of Commons during a period of chronic party weakness – Labour under Michael Foot in 1983. Back then he was portrayed as a scruffily dressed mummy’s boy, so has he grown up since then?

Well… he’s still a terrorist sympathiser according to most of the Press Wizards. Apparently requiring the UN to provide firm evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical weapons attack is irresponsible and dangerous (a position also held by those “freedom hating” Russian and Chinese governments) – obviously when Tony Blair got down on his knees for George W. Bush over some imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that wasn’t the case.

And T.B. doesn’t like J.C. – good. The fact that Mr. Blair waltzed off into the sunset to become a Middle East Peace Envoy after helping to destabalise the entire region, as well as being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to give exclusive speeches after leading us to the brink of an almighty financial crash, is pretty sick. Sure, Tony was good at winning elections, but he was also an utter Slime Ball. If he dislikes Corbyn, then Jez must be doing something right.

Mr. Corbyn is indeed wildly popular with grass roots leftists, securing two humongous victories in party leadership contests. However the Labour Machine is not so on board, with several MP’s having demanded his resignation. Jeremy’s here to stay for the election at least, and then he might be on his way… either to the top or cosigned to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, the latter seems more likely.

Looking past the Big Two, Mr. Tim Farron says he wants a second EU Referendum (meh – I’m getting a bit tired of all these votes) and supports the legalisation of cannabis – about time! So let’s stop pretending that a few tokes of sweet mary jane leads one to become a heroin addict. As Liberal Democrat leader, Tim has his work cut out to regain those seats wiped out in the 2015 General Election (and to get people to remember his name). The Green Party says some nice fluffy stuff about the brutality of consumer capitalism and environmental destruction, but realistically the best they can hope for is a continued rise in vote share. As for the SNP and Plaid Cymru…

Mr. Corbyn offers the only chance of an alternative in Number 10 Downing Street to Mrs. May, but I do not foresee the Establishment allowing for such a scenario. The Opinion Polls suggest the gap is too wide and most of the Media Hacks insist that Mr. Corbyn is unelectable and unfit to serve as prime minister. He peddles fantasy economics they say.

More austerity economics is the way forward supposedly. All those gleaming low-paid and zero-hour contract jobs, just excellent! All this fractional reserve banking is an almighty House of Cards anyway, what’s the point of pretending anymore? But we’ve got to keep the workers on this endless tread-mill to keep the great Big Lie alive. This fear mongering of immigrants, benefits scroungers, terrorists and Vladimir Putin is getting rather tiresome (though the recent attacks in London and Manchester were very real and traumatic).

Brits are working harder but are worse off than before. We’re saddled personally and fiscally with insurmountable debt, and we’re helping to export some ghastly weapons to Middle Eastern despots while telling the rest of Europe to fuck off.

This is the reality of Theresa May’s Britain.