Yesterday, after less than two years in office, British PM Keir Starmer performed his final u-turn by announcing that he’s stepping down* — support for him has completely collapsed; even his supporters have stopped supporting him. To be frank, he's never looked convincing in the role, because, as a politician, he’s a dud — no set-up, no pay-off, no discernible storyline. As the historian Dominic Sandbrook has said, in terms of PMs, he’s down at the bottom of the performance rankings — down alongside the likes of Theresa May and Alex Douglas-Home. Sandbrook compared him to Edward Heath: the same constrained way of speaking (similar anyhow), the same unease among others — certainly on the public stage — that same (or similar) complex about his background and social origins, the same technocratic sense of what government and governing is all about, and that same sense of grievance at his own party for (ungratefully) turning away from him . . . it’s a good pairing, I think. Comparisons could also be made with John Major for many of the same reasons.
*Almost from the off, Starmer's time in office has come to be characterised by u-turns — winter fuel payments, inheritance tax &c (as many as 13 u-turns by one count): he and his people spent all last week (and right into the weekend) briefing out that the prime minister was going nowhere — that he would fight on — all the usual dull bravado premiers and their courtiers come out with when they become perilously embattled. On top of which was the blame-anyone-but-me stuff: I don't have the precise figures to hand but, in less than two years, Starmer has had at least three chiefs-of-staff and about five comms directors; and these in addition to all the top civil servants he's bundled out the door — they can't all have been so poor that they needed to be chucked overboard, can they? And if they were, what does that say about the judgement of the person who appointed them? But most unforgivable of all was the Peter Mandelson fiasco; anyone with a lick of sense would never have had anything to do with that repulsive creep; a scandal made worse by Starmer attempting to portray himself as a victim — "I was duped", he whimpered, "I wasn't made aware of the facts!" Fuck off! Are you in charge of things or not? you weak-assed dipstick.
This morning, although I have more than enough to be getting on with — I’m working on a personality profile of Robert Orme at the minute, which I’m hoping to jigsaw into Part 3a of my biographical series on Robert Clive — I’m torn between getting on with what I have to do and writing something on the fact that in the ten years since the Brexit referendum (the 10th anniversary of which is today, 23 June), Britain has had six prime ministers and is about to have a 7th — Andy Burnham, hitherto mayor of Manchester and the Greater Manchester Metropolitan Area and a former Blair-Brown government minister.
Burnham hightailed it out of Dodge when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour Party leader in 2015, heading north to run for the mayoralty of a major British city & region, as opposed to sitting sour-faced on the backbenches in the House of Commons, pointedly refusing to serve in Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet — which is what most of his Blair-Brown administration colleagues did — leaving Corbyn with a clown-car front bench. Which turns out to have been a smart move because now Burnham is able to re-present himself as a new broom, an outsider with a fresh perspective, the proud father of ‘Manchesterism’ — the latter of which is a total crock because Manchester was a boomtown before Burnham became mayor and would have continued as such no matter who sat atop the local government pyramid. The other two are crocks too because Burnham came down from Cambridge (where he read English at Fitzwilliam) to work as an Oxbridge-educated bag-carrier for Tessa Jowell — MP for Dulwich and Opposition Health spokesperson — before becoming a ministerial SpAd — for Culture Secretary Chris Smith — a newly-elected backbench MP (in 2001), who hardly warmed his seat in the Commons before becoming a junior minister, Chief Sectary to the Treasury and then a full cabinet minister — his glide to the top as smooth and vertiginous as Leo Varadkar’s, both fully-fledged cabinet ministers before the age of 40 and both boy-faced health ministers. Andy Burnham is as much an outsider as Kamala Harris is a tribune for Ohio Joe. The comedian Russell Kane has done an on-the-nose set of TikTok type comedy sketches getting at exactly this point — doing an Andy Burnham impression — Andy Burnham doing ordinary things just like ordinary people: “Hi, I’m Andy Burnham, and today I’m making a cup of tea; just a normal cup of tea, just like you might do in your own kitchen at home. . .”; “Hi, I’m Andy Burnham, and today I’m putting on my socks, just normal socks like you might have at home, in a perfectly normal bedroom . . .” and so on. Fact is, Andy Burnham is an oleaginous power-crazed fiend and has been since he was a precocious middle class teenager (the mother of this fiend a GP and the father a telecoms engineer); the northern accent, the sneakers and the dad-at-an-Oasis-gig T-shirts as obviously curated as Boris Johnson's bons mots.
David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and, now, Andy Burnham. It does look chaotic; and it's felt chaotic, especially during the Brexit years (2016-20), when the country seemed to be as ungovernable as it’s been since the 1970s. (And then, of course, the Brexit years were followed by the Covid years; by which time things were so FUBAR Liz Truss was selected to be chairman of the board & chief executive — lunatic Liz and her Kwasi chancellor.) Almost every pundit has mined something from this ungovernability seam, but, because of the material I’m working on — Robert Clive and the story of the East India Company in the middle years of the 18th century — I’m struck by the fact that the like is far from unprecedented — the 1760s, for instance — the years between the collapse of the so-called ‘Whig Supremacy’ — ie, Robert Walpole in the 1720s and 30s through to the Pelham brothers in the 1740s and 50s — and the solidity of the North administration (1770-82) which finally restored stable governance after a lost decade of all-at-sea chaos and flailing discord.
There may well be other similar periods in Britain’s 300 (and more) years of parliamentary sovereignty — there was, for instance, another bout of chaos and apparent ungovernability between the North administration and the William Pitt (the Younger) years, and the country left-swiped through a good number prime ministers in the 1830s too* — but it's the earlier one — the 1760s — I want to focus on because it’s a period I’m familiar with.
*Subsequent to writing this, my attention has been drawn to a tweet by the broadcaster Iain Dale pointing out that six times in the past 300 years Britain has had six or more prime ministers in 10-year stretches: 1754-64 (6), 1801-11 (6), 1827-37 (8), 1858-68 (6), 1885-95 (7) and 1922-32 (6). Ps: When I say 'tweet', I mean a post on X, formerly (and memorably) known as Twitter.
George III came to the throne in October 1760 (aged just 22) and, at the earliest opportunity, he selected his tutor, mentor and ‘dearest friend’, the earl of Bute, John Stuart (1713-92), to be his first minister. (Appointed to cabinet in October 1760, Bute had in effect been the king's man in the administration long before the duke of Newcastle’s resignation in May 1762, which brought to an end 40 years of Whig Supremacy.) Bute, a Scottish Tory, was a dreadful choice, totally unsuited to such a role, not least because he had a snowball’s chance in hell of commanding the House of Commons, and the Commons controlled the money supply — and a government without money may be in office but it's not in power. Bute was appointed to the top job in May 1762 (following Newcastle’s resignation) and he was out of office less than twelve months later — April 1763.
Ps: Henry Pelham (1694-1754), prime minister from August 1743 to March 1754, and Thomas Pelham-Holles (1693-1768) — better known as the duke of Newcastle — were brothers, the latter serving as prime minister from March 1754 to November 1756, and again from June 1757 to May 1762. Also, just to mention, the office of prime minister didn't formally come into being until the 19th century, however Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) is generally recognised as the first prime minister (in the sense we understand that office today), even if the office didn't formally exist in the 1720s and 30s. Technically, as it says on the brass plate on the door of Number 10 Downing Street, the first minister is First Lord of the Treasury. Walpole was the first government leader to occupy Number 10 Downing Street — the following is copied & pasted from the Downing Street website (an article on the history of the place): 'King George II presented both the house on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards to Sir Robert Walpole, who held the title First Lord of the Treasury and effectively served as the first Prime Minister. Walpole refused the property as a personal gift. Instead, he asked the king to make it available as an official residence to him and to future First Lords of the Treasury — starting the tradition that continues today. The brass letterbox on the black front door is still engraved with this title.'
Next up to the oche was George Grenville (1712-70) — April 1763 to July 1765 — the man who is nowadays remembered solely for introducing the infamous Stamp Act which lit the fuse-cord for the rebellion and revolution in the American colonies. Between July 1765 and July 1766 there was Charles Watson-Wentworth (1730-82), the Marquess of Rockingham, who spent no inconsiderable amount of his twelve months in office attempting to undo Grenville’s handiwork, not least the aforementioned Stamp Act.
Then, between July 1766 and October 1768, William Pitt (1708-78) — the elder of the Pitts — by this time created earl of Chatham. Pitt was unquestionably competent (something memorably established during the Seven Years War (1756-63) — which, with operation theatres in the Americas, in India and all across Europe, is, arguably, the first World War — during which time the duke of Newcastle took care of domestic affairs while Pitt successfully managed the business of the various campaigns), and there can be little doubt of his widespread popularity, however, from January 1767 onwards, Pitt suffered a mental breakdown from which he never really recovered. And then after Pitt came the ‘hapless, weak and unfortunate’ Augustus FitzRoy (1735-1811), 3rd duke of Grafton, who clutched the reins of power from October 1768 until January 1770.
And then, finally, dry land with Frederick North (1732-92), prime minister from January 1770 until March 1782, the man who lost America, although he did win two general elections — in 1774 and 1780. (North is often referred to as 'Lord North', however, this is just a courtesy title — on account of his being the son and heir of the earl of Guilford — although he did succeed to the earldom in 1790.)
And, as I say, after North there was another period of revolving-door prime ministers until the 24-year-old William Pitt (1759-1805) — Pitt the Younger — was invited to step up to the oche in December 1783: another few months of Rockingham — March to July 1782 — then William Petty (1737-1805) — the earl of Shelburne — July 1782 to March 1783, and then, April to December 1783, William Cavendish Bentinck (1738-1809), the 3rd duke of Portland. And, of course — winning elections in 1784, 1790 and again in 1796 — Pitt took Britain into the early years of following century.
Now, here I can imagine someone saying "Whoa there, Dobbin: while the 19th century may be relevant to our present-day system — to some extent, anyhow — the antique and preposterously oligarchical 18th century set-up is utterly beyond the Pale! Little or nothing about that antique era is relevant to us in the here and now."
To which I would respond by acknowledging that while it is true that the further away from the here and now one goes the more strained the relevance, nevertheless the 18th century is by no means 'beyond the Pale' because, in the final analysis, it all comes down to commanding the confidence of parliament. Despite his massive majority, Keir Starmer lost the confidence of his troops in the House of Commons, that's why he's had to do so many u-turns and that's why — running out of serviceable rope — he has had to step down. That's what it all comes down to; and the same was true for Walpole and the Pelhams, for Peel and for Palmerston, and for Mrs Thatcher, Tony Blair and Stanley Baldwin. In the British system parliament — not the people — is sovereign.
And the second thing I'd say is this: the political system in the 18th century — corrupt and absurdly oligarchical as it undoubtedly was — was nevertheless much more inclusive and responsive than someone who only knows the here and now might credit.
Generally speaking, nowadays we tend to think of the unreformed electoral system in Britain — that is, the system in Britain before the Great Reform Act of the 1830s — as almost totally corrupt and utterly indefensible (which it was, I think it safe to say); it was, however, much more democratic than one might credit (well, quasi-democratic, perhaps one should say). According to Frank O’Gorman’s The Long 18th Century England’s ‘electorate numbered around 300,000 by 1700. When allowance is made for the very substantial ‘turnover’ of voters — many of whom failed to vote from one election to the next — the maximum ‘electoral pool’ was probably something over 500,000, an astonishingly high figure for an early modern society. [. . .] between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of adult males enjoyed the right to vote.* This is, again, an impressively high figure when it is recalled that at least 50 per cent of the adult male population, many of them servants, paupers, cottagers or simply day-labourers, lacked sufficient economic independence to have qualified for the vote on almost any franchise in the pre-democratic era.’ (Ibid., pp. 49-50.)
*In the British electoral system at this time there were several types of parliamentary constituencies, counties (the most prestigious types of seats), boroughs and universities (ie, Oxford and Cambridge). The House of Commons consisted of 558 members, elected by 314 constituencies. The 245 English constituencies (40 counties, 203 boroughs, 2 universities) returned 489 members (most English constituencies returning two members); the 24 Welsh constituencies and 45 Scottish constituencies returned one member each. On the franchise, the following is taken from the History of Parliament Online (Constituencies, 1715-1754): ‘The franchise in the counties was the ancient 40 shilling freeholder franchise: the vote belonged to those with freehold property worth £2 or more. In the boroughs, the widest franchise lay in the inhabitant householder or 'potwalloper' boroughs, where all resident householders not in receipt of alms or poor relief were able to vote. The largest group of boroughs was the freeman boroughs, where the right of voting lay in the freemen of the town. In the ‘scot and lot boroughs’, the right to vote was held by inhabitants paying the poor rate. Corporation boroughs, where the right to vote was confined to the corporation, were uniformly small, under 60 electors; burgage boroughs, where the franchise was attached to particular properties, not to people, often became pocket boroughs. In a small number of boroughs, the freeholder boroughs, the right of voting lay in possession of a freehold within the borough concerned.’
Moreover, as O’Gorman writes (The Long 18th Century, pp. 141-2), elections had powerful reciprocal features. Although the electoral system ‘could not remain immune from hierarchy and subordination in a society in which both were rife — electoral patronage was an inevitable fact of life in a propertied electoral system in a hierarchical society. Even then, however, the influence of electoral patrons was rarely complete. Money changed hands, favours were done, and, at times, corrupt practices amounting to intimidation could occur, but in its rough and ready way the electoral system remained open, a market place for personal, political and financial transactions. Electioneering was an expensive, insecure and enormously time-consuming business. Consequently, the electoral process may be best viewed as the interaction of patronage and influence on one hand with the desire of electors to maintain their social, occupational and political independence on the other.
[ . . . ] ‘First patrons and their servants had to respect and promote the needs of the constituency and its inhabitants. The results of elections were determined by the way that patrons involved themselves in a long-term and often very expensive relationship with the community and its welfare. [Moreover] Elections were opportunities for non-voters as well as voters to scrutinise their leaders, to criticise them and to hold them to public account. [My italics.] . . . Second, the oligarchy’s ultimate control of the electoral system depended on the work, loyalty and efficiency of thousands of canvassers, committee men, party workers and hundreds of people performing much less elevated tasks. That control was rarely arbitrary and almost always involved mutual responsibilities. Third, the preoccupation of the Hanoverian political elite with, and enormous investment in, the electoral system involved them in a permanent commitment to parliamentary politics and representative processes. All of this did much to render the political system amenable to criticism, responsive to the needs and wishes of local communities and thus, in so many ways, more flexible and open than might have been imagined in the late 17th century. Although the electorate in the age of Walpole and Henry Pelham was more placid than its predecessor, it retained many of its open and representative characteristics. For all the restrictive impositions of oligarchy — the Septennial Act, Last Determinations, more infrequent elections and the techniques of electoral manipulations — many of the open and participative qualities of the electorate of the reign of Anne were never wholly lost; and, indeed, in the open constituencies often largely retained. In London and the great provincial cities like Bristol and Norwich regularly contested elections, high turnouts and tumultuous popular participation indicate that the Hanoverian regime was unable to repress dissent and opposition. These features, indeed, were permanent and integral features of the electoral system of the long eighteenth century.’
But no need to take Frank O'Gorman's word for it, consider the following — William Hogarth’s portrait of a mid-century Georgian election.
The Humours of an Election (1754-55) is a series of four paintings by William Hogarth (1697-1764); ‘Canvassing for Votes’ (above) is the second in the series. The series is composed of four election scenes in Georgian England: ‘The Entertainment’, ‘Canvassing for Votes’, ‘The Polling’ and ‘Chairing the Member’ (chairing the victorious candidates through the town to a celebratory feast).
These paintings are now in the Soane Museum in London (13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP). The following is what the Soane Museum website has to say about about ‘reading’ these Hogarth pictures, a picture series amounting to a cultural critique of oligarchical Georgian political culture (text composed by Joanna Tinworth, who begins with an overview, outlining some things one needs to bear in mind before getting to the readings themselves).
‘The late seventeenth and early eighteenth century saw Britain governed by a constitutional Monarchy. Within parliament Members were aligned with one of two loose ‘parties’: ‘Whig’ or ‘Tory’, unless they were consciously ‘Independent’. In simple terms Toryism became identified with Anglicanism (particularly the high Church with its whiff of Catholicism and inferred Jacobitism) and the squirearchy, a term which describes small-to medium-scale country landowners. Whigs were associated with the Protestant Succession, taxation policies, tolerance of religious dissenters, aristocratic landowning families and the financial interests of the wealthy middle classes. However, this simplification ignores the fact that during the first half of the eighteenth century these groups were not always clearly defined and their policies were not always as distinct from each other as with modern political parties: alternative or multiple interests and allegiances were possible. For example, whether ‘Whig’ or ‘Tory’, it was not unusual to also be allied to a ‘Court’ or ‘Country’ interest. A ‘Court’ interest in the House of Commons comprised those Members whose first loyalty was to the monarch and his or her ministers, and not to a party or faction. A ‘Country’ interest suggested opposition to the administration and defending the true interests of the kingdom — preservation of liberty and the establishment of frugal and honest government — against the self-interested machinations of corrupt courtiers.
‘In addition to ‘parties’ or ‘interests’ the wealth, status and patronage of individual grandees, or kinship groups (many of the ruling families were inter-related) could be what drew MPs to one faction or another in Parliament. Patronage also reached beyond the House of Commons. Patronage and client networks linked nobles wielding national influence and enjoying access to the monarch, to local notables and to the common elector. An elector might align himself with the group that could offer him the most in return, be that a position of power within the administration, money, gifts, or simply local employment. With political ideals shifting and multiple interests at play, arguably the most constant element within early eighteenth-century politics was the notion of patronage, which was generally only a step away from corruption.
‘The Humours of an Election is a satire on the parlous state of the political nation in mid-eighteenth-century Britain, specifically parodying the 1754 Oxfordshire county election. Between 1710 and 1754 Oxfordshire was a Tory stronghold and the two parliamentary seats were not contested. In 1754 two Whig candidates, Sir Edward Turner and Lord Parker, supported by Whig grandees the Duke of Marlborough and Lords Macclesfield and Harcourt stood for parliament against the incumbent Tory MPs, Lord Wenman and Sir James Dashwood. After forty years without contest the Oxfordshire election became a talking point. According to The London Evening Post ‘every British Heart is full of the Oxfordshire Election which is become the chief subject of Conversation in the remotest corners of the Island.’
‘In the 1750s votes were made in public and recorded for posterity. [It wasn’t until 1872 that the passing of The Ballot Act enforced voting in parliamentary and municipal elections by secret ballot.] The right to vote was limited to men, according to specific criteria depending upon whether they lived in a county or a borough. In the counties the ancient forty-shilling freeholder franchise prevailed: the vote belonged to those with freehold property worth £2 [40 shillings] or more. In Oxfordshire this equated to an electorate of around 4,000 and these eligible men expected to have their vote bought by the candidates and their patrons. The Oxfordshire election became a byword for bribery, corruption and foul play. It was ‘probably the most notorious county election of the century: no expense or chicanery was spared by either side’ [R. J. Robson, The Oxfordshire Election of 1754 (1949)]. Henry Pelham, then the Prime Minister, ‘with the King’s consent and knowledge’, promised £7,000 towards the Whigs’ election expenses, and the Tories spent over £20,000 — of which over £8,000 was raised by public subscription.
‘Hogarth captures four elements of the election process in his paintings: the elaborate entertainment of the townsfolk to win their support, the flagrant bribery of the country electors, the shenanigans associated with polling day itself and the ‘chairing’ of the winners through the town. Collectively the paintings depict the chaotic consequences of a political system built on the mutual avarice and dishonesty of both the candidates and the electorate. The pictures are typically Hogarthian: intelligent, intricate and rich with allusion. Yet, despite their complexity, through their use of humour, familiar locations and stereotypical characters, they effortlessly lay bare the networks of patronage and corruption which sustained the eighteenth-century political system.’
‘The third scene in [Hogarth’s] series, [again this is Joanna Tinworth’s text taken from the Soane Museum website] ‘The Polling’, takes place on the day of the election and depicts the polling booth, a rough wooden construction to which all the electors are coming to publicly cast their votes. The booth is set against the backdrop of an expertly executed landscape, the background and foreground perfectly unified, the atmosphere that of an idyllic spring day, the deep blue sky, white clouds and warm sunlight caressing the group of houses and church in the middle distance and evoking a sense of calm, peace and control that is completely at odds with the scene in the foreground at the poll and background on the bridge.
‘The booth is decorated with two flags, the blue Tory flag on the left and the orange Whig flag on the right. The two candidates sit on chairs on the corresponding sides of the booth, elevated slightly above the mass of men standing in front of them under the awning. Between them, the beadle or constable who should be ensuring fair play and an orderly election has fallen asleep. Neither contestant looks particularly content or confident. On the left the Tory candidate pushes back his dark grey wig and scratches his bald head in perplexity whilst looking down at a thick wedge of papers in his hands, the uppermost inscribed ‘Bill’: he is clearly aghast at what the election may have cost him, but his bribes appear to have been effective. Judging by the throng of supporters in plain country clothing adorned with blue rosettes who have already cast their votes and are now talking and drinking together. On the right-hand side the Whig candidate, in his blue coat with fawn trim, sits primly upright, hands resting upon his cane. Staring at him is a red-coated caricaturist with a bag-wig who has produced an unflattering sketch of him to the great mirth of two rough looking men. Few in the booth wear the Whigs’ orange colours and the candidate is peering out towards the distant bridge leading into town which appears to be thronged with people on foot, on horseback and in carriages, travelling in both directions, waving both blue and orange flags. Many are brandishing sticks, it is a scene of violence and chaos, one horse’s legs rearing over the bridge’s balustrade. The Whig candidate is surely hoping that some of them are coming to cast their vote for him and wondering at the delay; perhaps more electoral shenanigans are at play and the passage into town has been barred to prevent electors from voting. The scene probably refers to an incident that took place on Magdalen Bridge in Oxford during the 1754 election when a Tory mob engulfed a carriage belonging to a Whig and threatened to overturn it. A Captain Turton broke the stalemate by shooting a Tory chimneysweep dead after which the crowd broke up.
‘In front of the polling booth there is a queue of electors arriving to vote who are evidently in no fit state to exercise their judgement, or are arguably ineligible, neither circumstance apparently a concern to the equally duplicitous party agents. On the right of the canvas is a smartly dressed ex-soldier in black waistcoat and breeches and a long red coat, a sword at his waist and a tricorn hat adorned with the Whig colours wedged under his armpit. He has lost both arms and one leg fighting for his country and is taking the oath that he is eligible to vote, but with no right hand to lay on the bible and only a hook in place of his left, there is doubt as to the legitimacy of his oath. Behind the soldier a lively exchange is taking place between two lawyers, presumably representing each of the parties, seeking to promote or defend every remotely viable vote. One, slender and bony-featured, points in anger at the soldier’s hook, apparently deeming it insufficient for swearing his oath. The other, fat and garrulous, throws his hands wide in a gesture of repudiation. Ironically, the soldier is, of all the queuing electors, most fit to choose between Whig and Tory. Behind him a man who has lost his reason and doesn’t know who he is voting for is nonetheless carried on a chair to the poll by a man whose legs are shackled, presumably a prisoner on parole. The criminal wears a long drab coat and the Tories’ blue colours in his hat and is whispering the words of the oath to the simpleton in order for his vote to be registered by the Tory recorder in his grey coat who leans out of the booth to better capture his words. Between the fool’s feet and the booth is an orange rosette, just visible in the shadows indicating that the voter’s preference, had he been allowed to, or capable of indulging it, would have been for the Whig party. Another Whig, wearing an orange rosette, is also carried to the poll, this time by Whig supporters but the grey blue tinge to his face suggests that if he is not already dead, he is certainly dying and in no fit state to vote. The dying man is followed by a blind one, one hand on the shoulder of a young boy who is guiding him, the other holds a stick to help him feel his way, his eyes are clouded, possibly by cataracts. Like the fool who was deceived into voting for the wrong party the blind man, proudly wearing the blue Tory colours on his hat has had those on his coat obscured by the orange of the Whigs and by inference he too cannot direct his vote as he would wish due to his disability. At the rear of the queue is a disabled Tory struggling to climb the stairs. The tips of four staves just visible in the right-hand bottom corner of the painting suggest a physical barrier of thugs ready to prevent too many voters of the ‘wrong’ party – whichever that may be – from reaching the poll.
‘To the left of the polling booth is an elaborate coach, carrying Britannia clinging to a strap and clutching at the door as evidenced by her flowing draperies and the Union flag painted inside a cartouche on the coach door, the coach clearly symbolising the nation. It has utterly broken down, its axle snapped in two, the white Hanoverian horses denoting the monarchy rearing and plunging to no avail. The two coachmen, symbolic of the nation’s parliamentary leaders, are oblivious to the plight of the coach and its passenger, being fully preoccupied with a game of cards at which one is clearly cheating, hiding the three of clubs behind the other’s back. They are incapable of repairing the coach or leading it to safety. The political state is revealed as flawed, broken, corrupt and arguably beyond repair both physically at the poll and allegorically in the guise of Britannia’s carriage.’
For more on William Hogarth's Humours of an Election paintings, see also my Chairing the Member post.
Source: Ungovernable Britain
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