There is much commentary in the USA about the revulsion that so many folks feel for the three intertwined pillars of the status quo of the establishment: the political class, the big businessmen who fund/buy that class and the media pundits who take the political/business spin without question. I would perhaps add a fourth pillar, the banksters, but perhaps they are rolled into business fat cats. The massive distrust and resentment of these people seems to be evident across the West. That Americans may well vote for Donald Trump who is, shall we say, not exactly the new Abraham Lincoln, is a sign of this, Brexit was another as is the rise of the frightful Marine Le Pen in France.
And so we come to the coronation of Theresa May as Britain's new Prime Minister. And it was a coronation. There was not vote of party members she was picked as a result of Tory MPs voting. One might accept that she was the only sane choice as the other candidates were tainted by the stench of treachery (Gove), hypocrisy and jiggy wiggy issues (Crabb), plain stupidity and honesty issues (Loathsome) or just being seen as a perennial no hoper (Fox). But none the less her appointment is not a great day for democracy. It will be seen as another Westminster stitch up. And it was.
The media reported on high drama. with the selection of another Oxbridge financier as our new PM and then of a cabinet reshuffle with one public school educated Oxbridge person with zero real life experience swapping jobs with another from the same background. With one or two exceptions to this ( David Davis) nothing really changed. May's silly words about a new direction were either non-sensical or just plain old clap trap. But the media pundits loved it and spun it as a move this way or that.
This weekend in the more fashionable parts of London those same media pundits, the spinners and the political classes and their bankster pals will mingle at parties and will still be chatting about nothing other than the Westminster drama before returning to their seven figure valued residences. As they contemplate their secure six figure salaries they look forward to the Bank of England cutting rates again to keep the asset bubble going. Perhaps Theresa May really does think that a housing and bond/stockmarket bubble is the same as real Wealth creation and that somehow her magic wand can make the bubble be shared out in a way that helps those on the other side of the tracks, folks in the North or who don't own such assets? If she does she is kidding herself. The country is not fooled.
For all the media spin about how post Brexit this country has become racist hotbed where EU citizens are terrified to stay, the reality is that migrants continue to come to the UK every day notwithstanding all those vain pledges by the last Home Secretary, Mrs T May, to curtail the flow. It is hard to see her replacement, the posh dimwitted and poisonous Amber Rudd, promoted as a triumph of gender over inability, making the situation any better.
The pissed off folks of Britain who mistrust every word that class status quo says; who experience some of the downside issues of immigration such as wage pressure and reduced access to healthcare provision but none of the many upsides and, above all, who have not shared in the asset bubble view life in the Westminster bubble rather differently.
Outside the world of the status quo there may be some who will give Mrs May a chance, who buy into the media spin for now. But their patience will not take long to snap. Most of those who were angry on June 23rd are still angry and with good reason. They see that nothing has changed and nothing will.
The "insurgency" of those left out from the good times is a global phenomenon. Nothing has changed in the past week to suggest the UK has done anything to address this. When Laura Kuenssberg and her BBC colleagues talk of a divided nation their analysis is a simplistic one based on rich versus poor which does not look factor in asset bubbles, old fashioned left vs right as if those terms mean anything. The trouble is that the media pundits and mainstream outlets are in fact part of that divide, they sit firmly on one side of the barricades staring out at an angry mob they despise and fail to understand.