I hate it when politicians are happy. 

When they stand in parliament and laugh at each others’ little quips, when they play into, counter, appreciate their opposition’s acerbic wit, it makes me sick. Are you having a grand old time? Ha ha ha, what fun it is to have a regular salary and engage your vocal chords only to score points that matter nowhere else than your black bean wood box. 

“Is that not his job?” I shouted as people lamented ‘poor old David’, ‘poor old Boris’, ‘poor old Rishi’.

“Is that not his job? Is he not meant to be stressed? To be downtrodden? To be abused? He is not meant to be happy. He is a politician.”

Happiness is not an emotion that should be allowed in government. Anger, yes. Grief, yes. Happiness? Absolutely not. The only hope for our island is to ensure our politicians suffer. 

There should be no campaign buses plastered with grinning faces. The great politician rides in the back of unmarked transit van. The windows, of course, will be poorly tinted so their public can peer through the bars and throw things and say ‘dance, monkey dance’. The great politician will dance.

Children and puppies, the happiest of God’s creatures, will be avoided at all costs. The great politician drinks red stripes, the most depressing of all lager, and smokes in a profuse fashion only Pall Malls, the saddest of all cigarettes.  

There will be no retirement parties with champagne flutes clinking and old speeches recycled. The only herald of a politician’s passing is the solemn clatter of an empty chamber, echoing the sacrifice of their all for the ignoble cause of…whatever it is they do. The great politician dies in service, or else they have not served.

When, you ask, do they make their death growl? 

Well, there should be no pensioner politicians. The great politician obligingly keels over from heart failure at 58 and not a moment after, their body worn out from the vigour with which they have endeavoured to make every single person in their constituency happy in their place. 

They will have no plaques or statues dedicated to them. They will have no public holidays in their honour. They will be remembered only through the acts they have conceived and laboured to bring into being. ‘Wasn’t that whas’nim? Yea, he was one of the good ones.’ 

Of course, unhappy politicians are not so great either. Truly unhappy politicians, that is, those who have everything one would consider necessary to happiness and more, who have gone to the depths of human immorality and still find their stomachs less sated than a child from Chadderton and Roytonn, tend to evil, for no other reason than because it’s quite fun to be evil if you’ve already been everything else. We let these people into our government because, for God knows what reason, we value overt happiness, and are thus deceived to think that it rolls right down into the roots of a person. A big-bellied back bencher could never be bad, no no, for he chuckles so heartily at his chums and smiles so sweetly at that young waitress. 

But what Briton could not pretend at pleasure with a fat wad burning through their pocket?

No. That is the wrong kind of unhappiness.

The great politician knows they have a duty to the avoidance of happiness, but they will still have the decency of spirit to be inclined to optimism. If they know what’s good for them, they will have spent a lifetime forcing that inherent joy right down as far as they can into their soul. And when inevitable lapses are made, what are the public if not giving and forgiving? 

Politicians may, on occasion, indulge in the expression of air from the nostrils at a good faith impersonation of their most recent faux-pas, and perhaps even be allowed to smile when their child, not yet at the age to successfully read their parent’s wikipedia page, draws their stick figures hand in hand. We will, of course, make it legal for them to feel a kind of pseudo-contentment in their sadness, for they need some way to know that that weight pulling at their temples is an indication the job is being done. But this will only be done in private and only, say, once a month. 

I hate it when politicians are happy. Yet, despite how often I fantasise about what our politicians could be, should be, I know the vision is misplaced. Impossible. After all, which of our leaders could resist a smile at the thought of a nation finally too perplexed to complain?

A/N: This is my first attempt at something bordering on satire, but it’s borne from a genuine dislike of the way many people in the British government believe they have somehow ‘made it’ once they get voted into parliament, and that, as such, they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the detriment of the British public. IDK, I like to have a rant sometimes. Hope you enjoyed 😀